Photography - them

I took loads of photos of the birds at the feeder with not great results. I had issues with the light (the feeder was in the shade), the light was poor in general, the wind (the feeder was moving), the obvious things like the birds didn't stay still and the dog scaring the birds away. I had difficulties focussing the camera, the auto focus wasn't coping with the swing of the feeder in the wind and although I did resort to the manual focus, I had to focus on the feeder, not the birds, so the birds are generally a little bit soft. I put the tripod outside in the garden and manually focussed the camera and put it onto auto (I had tried lots of different settings but my previous attempts had been too dark). I then attached the cable release and sat myself inside (so not to scare the birds) and I pressed the release when the birds were there. This allowed me to get a metre closer to the birds. The auto activated the flash.

 This photo above is what I got, this is my maximum zoom.
 For all these photos I did the same thing. I cropped them, I reduced exposure (I thought they were a bit too light), I increased contrasts, highlights and blacks.
 The birds aren't bad given the zoom and the cropping I have done however I feel they should have been slightly sharper.



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