Male Eastern Bluebird

Among my favorite native bird species.

Any critiques/comments are welcome.

Canon 60D, Canon 70-300mm IS USM Zoom @ 300mm, f/9.5, 1/1500 sec., ISO 800, Ev -0.5 Step, Spot Metering, Hand Held

A great pose, Terry, and the maze of twigs, while busy, isn’t distracting, they actually make a rather pleasant background. The Bluebird seems just a bit soft, and while I know that’s not the sharpest lens in Canon’s arsenal, I have a suspicion that your autofocus locked onto the horizontal twig above the bird’s head. The algorithms they use love straight lines and high contrast and birds don’t usually have much of either. If you’re not already doing so, in situations like this, I’d suggest using the smallest single point AF that the camera supports and try to put it on the eye. This is still a very nice image and I like it as posted.

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Thanks, Dennis. Yeah, the autofocus causes me many problems with this camera and lens, constantly jumpng around - especially in a busy situation like this one. I do use the single point most of the time, but don’t always get it aimed where it needs to be. Well-spotted.

I even started using Back Button AF in the hope that, once I got locked on the AF wouldn’t bounce so much. I think it did help in some situations.