Green Heron

Great use of light with gorgeous colors, the presentation is fantastic.

That is a very nice photo, but (take this with a grain of salt, because I haven't got anything this good) I would have given it more "Gazing Room" by placing it slightly farther to the right. Also, I would have gone with either a smaller aperture for DOF or focus a little farther back, because the head is out of focus, but once again, this is better than any of my work.

Hi Baraba,

Nice capture.

However, focus does not appear to be as sharp as I would expect.

It might be a focus issue.

The 300mm lens at F/5 should have produced more detail, even in the tree branch. The use of a smaller aperture would be the wrong direction for any shot like this. Wide open aperture is superior. 

If the lens was a 300mm F/4, I would have shot it at F/4. The background blur would have been better and the bird would have been sharper.

I would have used ISO 200 to assure that there was no hand motion during the exposure. A very small  amount of hand motion can cause an image to blur like it was not properly focused. This is true of IS lens, too.

For example, at F/4 and ISO 200, this same image would have required a shutter speed of 1/1000 second that would have assured a better image, showing more of what your lens is capable of yielding.

Best Regards,  Mike