Dark-eyed Junco's

Dark-eyed Junco (Junco hyemalis)

Length 6.25 inches, Wing Span 9.25 inches, Weight 0.67 oz, (19g)

Nest in open coniferous or mixed woods with patches of open ground. Winters in small flocks in patchy wooded areas. Voice: Song a short trill. Call a very high hard stip. Flight call a sharp buzzy tzeet.

Range: Breeds from Alaska east to Newfoundland, and south to mountains in Mexico and Georgia. Winters south to Gulf Coast and northern Mexico.

http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l4...8/_MG_5419.jpg

http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l4...y_filtered.jpg

http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l4...8/_MG_5660.jpg

These are the three best out of the thirty or so images that I took of them this weekend, it was hard to get a good shot of one. The middle image had a lot of blue pixel noise which I tried reducing with the noise filter and Neat Image. I should have used a slower shutter speed instead of the high ISO… hind sight…

And… :D the last image was hand held, I’m glad I had the IS on lol.

I see that you're keeping a constant f/13 even when switching back and forth between the 1.4x and 2x TC's. With the 1.4x, I think f/13 is a bit too small. My suggestion would be to open up to f/8 or f/11 to reduce your ISO as much as possible.

With my 2x on the 300mm, I rarely use anything smaller than f/11 as I find one stop under WO is as sharp as this combo gets.

Love that last one. Great detail on the dark feathers & eye. The breast is a bit hot but not objectionably.

Thanks for the advice Loupey, I didn't even consider doing that with different TC's (doh!). And.. I agree about the breast (the whole under-side) being hot, I'll try to figure out how to tone that down some.