Show your Bird Portraits

[serendipidy]

Wilson's Phalaropes, females in this case (which tend to be flashier than the males), out at Cherry Creek State Park in Colorado:

Awesome! Great shots Sir.

Concur! Very nice. 

[SevenDUser]

Great Blue Heron    Canon 7D 400mm f/5.6

[CTJohn]

Everglades Osprey dining.

[2n10]

American Kestrel brunch

[Click]

I love your Osprey CTJohn. 

[jrista]

Everglades Osprey dining.

Awesome shot! Love the sharpness and clarity of the bird...I love Ospreys, beautiful creatures!

[jrista]

American Kestrel brunch

Nice shot. Might want to heal/clone out the bits of the leaf that encroach on the bird...otherwise, he's a beauty.

[serendipidy]

#1 Heron Bad Hair Day
#2 Heron trying to hide in an Octopus tree

[serendipidy]

From today: Brazilian Cardinal and Red Northern Cardinal on a chain link fence

[IslanderMV]

Yellow Warbler - Martha's Vineyard
60D with 100-400mm
A very tiny bird.

[Northstar]

Everglades Osprey dining.

Cool shot CT

[Pugshot]

Here are a few:

[TheDinoMeister]

Hi everyone!  Here's a photo I took of a baby bird in Central Park.

[serendipidy]

Trying to learn the skill of BIF photography on my 7D and 100-400L or 70-200LII/2.8. Have been practicing on several herons that frequent here. It's a lot harder than I expected. Most of the shots (>90%) are totally worthless OOF blurs Starting to get a few almost acceptable shots which I will post for C&C. For those that are proficient, what settings do you use? Things like (on a 7D) AV or TV mode, what autofocus settings (zone, AF point expansion, etc), metering setting, etc? I try to limit ISO to 400 but that means wide aperture (shallow DOF-blurry) and/or slow shutter speed (again, blurry shots). Maybe I need a 5D3 or 1DX Thanks for any suggestions. Here are some of my better ones from past 2 days.

[CTJohn]

Trying to learn the skill of BIF photography on my 7D and 100-400L or 70-200LII/2.8. Have been practicing on several herons that frequent here. It's a lot harder than I expected. Most of the shots (>90%) are totally worthless OOF blurs Starting to get a few almost acceptable shots which I will post for C&C. For those that are proficient, what settings do you use? Things like (on a 7D) AV or TV mode, what autofocus settings (zone, AF point expansion, etc), metering setting, etc? I try to limit ISO to 400 but that means wide aperture (shallow DOF-blurry) and/or slow shutter speed (again, blurry shots). Maybe I need a 5D3 or 1DX Thanks for any suggestions. Here are some of my better ones from past 2 days.

I use a 7D TV mode,  with shutter speed set to 1/800th or faster and Auto ISO with a limit of 800.  I also use back button focusing in Servo.  I'll usually use evaluative metering, but sometimes switch to partial or spot if there's a lot of contrast in the scene.  I love the 7D's fps capability.  With a fast flying bird, (assuming I can get it in the frame!) I get around half as keepers, and probably 20% I'd consider good.  Agree, it's harder than I thought it would be.