My First Attempt at Birds in the Garden

[Freester]

Hi,

This is my first real attempt at taking some pictures of some birds in my garden.

I was struggling with light. Using my 400D with a Tamron 70-300mm F4/5.6 DI LD Macro Lens at full zoom so most are at ISO 1600 so look a little grainy after cropping / zooming.

C&C welcome.

Goldfinch:

Robin:

Fieldfare (not a great shot I know but just wanted to show off this most welcome (but camera shy) winter visitor to our garden...:

 

[InaGlo]

Your Goldfinch pic is pretty on par with mine, and while not great I was still chuffed to get it!
I like the first two shots for their natural-looking surroundings.
Youre lucky to get the Fieldfare in the garden, dont think Ive seen one of those in mine.

 

[BRASH]

Reasonable efforts though spoiled for the reasons you gave. Poor light, high iso, cropping etc does greatly reduce the IQ. You'll find the thing with little birds is patience and stealth are needed to get close enough to get detailed shots and quality glass also helps a lot.

Birds are my main interest and I think I've only posted a couple on here which I thought were of good enough quality and I've taken hundreds of shots. It's a great felling when you get a good shot tho. Keep at it buddy

 

[Freester]

Youre lucky to get the Fieldfare in the garden, dont think Ive seen one of those in mine.

Never seen one in my garden before this winter. It's been hanging around a week or two now. I had to look it up in a book when it first arrived as initially I thought it was a scruffy juvenile Jay! Amusing bird to watch. It covets the berries and fallen fruit and chases off any blackbird or thrush that dares to step foot in the garden!

You'll find the thing with little birds is patience and stealth are needed to get close enough to get detailed shots and quality glass also helps a lot.

Birds are my main interest and I think I've only posted a couple on here which I thought were of good enough quality and I've taken hundreds of shots. It's a great felling when you get a good shot tho. Keep at it buddy

Thanks for the advice and encouragement!

 

[elvis]

Nice shots especially the goldie and a fieldfare in your garden excellent

 

[joxby]

I think you had a little bit of room for manouver on the first 3, the last one really is dark and the camera mis-focussed on the twigs in front of the bird.

iso 1600 is a duffer, you need to wait for better light, having said that for a static bird you could drop the shutter speed to a hundredth hand held (if your steady) and drop the iso a bit.
That first one has -.67 exposure bias dialed in, bit of iso there.
2nd one is 1/640th shutter, theres a couple of stops there down at 100th, and 3 is the same aaand a whole stop of - exposure bias.
What I'm saying is, when things are tight for light there are things you can do to give yourself the best chance of a usable shot @ hopefully iso 400....sometimes thats just not achievable tho.