Blue Jay

Any comment about the colors, technical details, composition, etc. is

welcome. I would like to know how I can do a better shot.

The over all composition is well thought out and pleasing to the viewers eye. While the head is nearly dead center, the over all image works well for me. 

The DOF is also just deep enough to help the viewer stay focused on the bird, which is in perfect focus. 

What spoils your photograph is that the head and front of the bird is drastically under exposed, leaving all the features in deep shadow, while the rest of the scene is properly exposed in soft, diffused light.

This leads me to believe that when you measured the exposure for the shot, you were most likely using Matrix.  I would have used spot, yielding a properly exposed head, which is the most important part of the bird to the viewers eye.   If you felt that the rest of the image was over exposed, you could have corrected it in Post Production. 

I would suggest a re-edit, and work on increasing the brightness and contrast of the bird.

Joel 

Hi Joel,

Thanks a lot for you comments, I will try to keep them in mind next time I'm doing this.

This is one of my first attempts to take photos of birds, so I might have done something wrong.

I was using a EF 75-300 lens for this shot, and not being on a tripod, it was hard to really make it a good composition. Besides, this bird was really active and moving around, so I had difficulty chasing it.

You're right about the exposure metering, I was using matrix. But I don't know if using spot metering will change the brightness of the head of the bird. The feathers were black. I tried to increase brightness of the head part in Photoshop, but that didn't come out good. ( Selecting the head part, adding a gradient mask and increase the brightness) well, I'm not really experienced with photoshop, but I will try more to see if I can improve the way the bird looks.

Thanks.

Ali.

Ali, I'm assuming that you were using it close to the 300mm max, making the matrix metering better, but still you camera would meter the entire frame equally. By using spot, and making sure that the bird's head is with the metering box in your viewfinder, you'll get a more accurate exposure reading.   With that dark of a subject, I would have stopped down another 1/2 stop to cover it. 

I would suggest using manual as the best option. Once you work out the correct exposure (use a gray card or a neutral color object on the ground out of direct sunlight), just leave the exposure as is, as concentrate on your subject.

It's much easier to adjust the background/foreground for exposure in Post Production. 

I don't use Photoshop, preffering Nikon Capture DX2 instead. 

Joel