First ever birding, C&C please.

Hey guys, here's my first attempt at birding. Not the best day to try this thing, it was gray and foggy and cloudy, but I was out on the porch with the camera in my hand (XTi + 55-250IS) and saw this bird.

The first shot made me pull the ISO up, but then the bird quickly jumped up a few branches which is the next two shots. I should have reduced my ISO for those, but I was a little excited and panicky to get some shots before it flew away

Comments and critique kindly requested. Also I have NO clue what bird this is and if I did not know any better, I'd call it a sparrow.

One thing I noticed is 250 x 1.6 = 400mm is NOT at all significant for shooting small objects like birds.

35% crop

I believe it's a Mocking bird. I've never seen one here though, so I'm jealous.

You should shoot in RAW, which gives you more opportunity to adjust the lighting without adding noise. They could be brighter, or the last two could. What software do you use?

I do use RAW, as were these shots. I didn't know what was the right amount of brightening that needed to be done, so I bumped it up ever so slightly, but I didn't like the effect it was having on the background being blown out so I reduced the contrast to approx -2 (in the second and third pic).

I use DPP. I just cropped in Windows Picture Gallery. Maybe I should brighten them up a little.

Thanks Let me google for Mockingbird images.

The bird in the last two is a little dark, the rest is bright, but...

Alright, apart from the exposure, any tips on crop?

Yep, looks like a Mockingbird. The first one is about right as far as exposure.

A little PP on the first one:
45% crop.

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …s/garagenoise/3​151835717/

A lovely bird and some nice shots. Hope you don't mind but I took the third one and had a play. In CS3 I tweaked the shadows/highlights, did a spot of Noiseware then faded it slightly, then added a touch of saturation.

Very nice Thanks, it looks much better than the original.

I hope you don't mind as I went over you 1st shot in Lightroom. Just did a little exposure & contrast adjustments. Cropped a bit. All your shots are really good just suspect it was the conditions playing their part.

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Scott: Nice!
Cool! I can see bird shots are open to a LOT of interpretations and they all look good.