Post your best bird shots!

[Joel Eade]

Male Hairy Woodpecker

1D MKIV
500mm
iso 1600
f/5.6
1/800
No flash

[sedwards]

my goal is to one day be able to get images as sharp as yours Joel. im not there yet but i think im improving all the time . i bought reikan focal and got the right AFMA set and found the sharpest aperture according to the program. i should have done that a long time ago lol.
here are a few of my favorites from today .
female cardinal by sedwards679, on Flickr
tufted titmouse by sedwards679, on Flickr
white throated sparrow by sedwards679, on Flickr

[Joel Eade]

I see no problem at all with the sharpness you are getting...these have great detail. The light is bit bright. If you can lure these guys onto a perch with a cleaner background you will have some stunners

[Dave Throgmartin]

I usually leave the bird pictures to the pros these days, but wanted to share these. A local conservatory had lorikeets in and I stopped by right at opening time to get a decent chance to capture some images. The best part was photos of the lorikeets crawling all over the family, but I won't post those here

No 1 Posing - heavily edited the background with Gaussian blur to clean it up

2014_09_28_8096_LR_upd_5x5 by dthrog00, on Flickr

No 2 Green Lorikeet

2014_09_28_8116_LR_upd_5x5 by dthrog00, on Flickr

No 3 Natural Looking Habitat - this is one the only once the bunch that looked semi-real.

2014_09_28_8174_LR_upd_5x7 by dthrog00, on Flickr

Thanks for viewing.
Dave

[Raid]

Nice shots. Just to let you know 1 & 3 are Rainbow Lorikeets. Number 2 could be a Scaly-breasted Lorikeet but difficult to tell without more of the bird visible.

[Joel Eade]

Those are gorgeous....I like #2 best.

[sedwards]

northern cardinal . its not as easy as i thought to find a clean background.
IMG_3135 by sedwards679, on Flickr

[Jayson]

This was kind of cheating. Taken with EF-M 18-55mm Kit lens at 55mm, no crop. Credit to the birds of Epcot.

White Ibis

[Dave Throgmartin]

northern cardinal . its not as easy as i thought to find a clean background.
IMG_3135 by sedwards679, on Flickr

Stuart,

First, excellent cardinal photo.

Second, to get the really blurry background you have basically 4 different options:

1. Get closer to the subject
2. Increase distance between the subject and the background
3. Pick a background that is plain
4. Use a faster f-stop where available

The couple shots below are about the best I could do using a 60D.

No 1 Chickadee using options 1, 2, and 3 above at 280mm & f/5.6 -- there's very little going on behind the little bird. The shot is a ways off Joel's shots, but the background isn't tremendously different. Pretty amazing given crop sensor at 280mm & f/5.6, but it is possible with the right background.

2013_01_06_2431_upd by dthrog00, on Flickr

No 2 European Starling using options 1 & 2 at 280mm & f/5.6 -- here, the background is not as clean.

2013_02_03_3120_upd by dthrog00, on Flickr

Best of luck! Again, great shot.

Dave

[Joel Eade]

. its not as easy as i thought to find a clean background.
IMG_3135 by sedwards679, on Flickr

This is a very nice shot, sharp with good detail and color. I agree with you .... it's a challenge to get a clean BG. Behind my house I have about 50 feet of grass and then 3 acres of woods. I have 2 or 3 spots where I can line up the shot so the background is a space between the trees. In this way the background is probably more than 50 feet behind the subject. As Dave has pointed out this is primary method for throwing the BG out of focus. His other suggestions are good as well.