nature - songbirds Male House Finch (Carpodacus mexicanus)

Best if the latest three uploads in my opinion! The smooth green behind, the sharpness of the bird....fantastic. Again, fill flash would have helped, not only lighting up the side of the bird, but adding a catchlight to its eye.

 

Also, I might clone out that lower branch - it's a little distracting.

Definitely agree on the lower branch. To be honest I didn't even see it until you pointed it out. I have done some work with fill flash; There's a chickadee portrait in the gallery I used my SB800 on and it came out great. At the moment my "blind" is my office so I shoot through a window. That makes it tough to use flash, but I think if I can get an off-camera TTL cord it should work. Workin' on it... Thanks for all the feedback!

Working on subtle changes to the area I shoot from in order to tweak

the background. I'm very pleased with the way this one came out. I

appreciate all thoughts and critiques.

Too much shadow on the bird.

Nice shot. I agree with a small amount of fill flash and losing the lower branch

The SB-800 is glorious for bird photography, especially when coupled with the Better Beamer I mentioned. You'll have to play around with the output a little, but mostly you'll want to stay well under 0 EV, say around -1.7 and below. Just enough to even out the lighting. Enjoy, it's a lot of fun!