I spent a lot of time today practicing shooting with manual focus. I used my Canon 300mm f/4L and 2X TC, these were all hand held and haven’t had a sharpening filter applied to them (only p/p was a very minor levels and contrast adjustment… and vertical crop from the top of the frame to the bottom).

Anyway, here are my best five out of about fifty. I tried using Loupeys suggestion of focusing on the eye ring but found that was very hard for me. Instead I focused on their legs.

A female house-finch



Dark-eyed junco (male I guess)



Male hairy woodpecker



Female downy woodpecker



Male cardinal



Thank you for looking.