In the yard

I like the position and sharp detail of the bird. The color is warm and pleasing. The BG is neutral, but somewhat spoiled by the lighter vertical OOF thing. The OOF object in front of the subject is distracting as well. My biggest nit is that the subject is way too tight in the frame.

Nice color, clarity and comp. It is almost like he is setting for a portrait.

Thanks for the replies. in my reading I have heard " fill the frame" use a lot. If the bird is too tight in the frame, what could have been done? Thanks for looking. btw. the out of focus obhect was part of the bird feeder.. I should have tried a smaller f stop.

Hi Paul. I think your f-stop is fine, since the subject is sharp. It is generally preferable to have a fairly shallow depth of field so surrounding objects, and especially the background, are out of focus. You accomplished that nicely, but the location of the foreground part of the feeder is in our line of sight and obstructs our view. I don't know if it was possible, but if you raised your point of view slightly, you may have gotten a clean shot looking over that part of the feeder.

I noticed you have a few backyard shots in your gallery. That's a great place to practice and develop your skills. With a little forethought, you can arrange feeders and perches in a way that will increase your chances of getting nice natural looking shots. Here's a great article that helped me a lot. http://www.naturephotographers.net/articles1205/gm1205-1.html Keep at it and stay active on this site. You will learn a lot here.