Red Winged Blackbird

[Lava Lamp]

I photographed this bird over the weekend with a D70 and 75-300 lens set @ f/5.6 and 1/800 spot metered on the bird and cropped and tweaked in Photoshop Elements. Tell me what you think and how you would improve it, please.

[gahspidy]

Lavalamp,
I like the framing and composition very much. Everything about this image I like, except the bird is lost a bit from no lighting on its front area.. You said you used a 75 -300 lens at 5.6. I would guess then, byt the dof I see here, that you probably were only zoomed to about 200mm or so. I don't know if you did or not, but the use of a fill flash here would have made this image perfection, I feel. Just enough flash to expose some of the birds detail in front would have been great. Asit is , I like the shot, but the fill flash would have made it better. Just my two cents.
By the way, I have been trying to get some good shots of some Herons and Egrets that habitat an area near me and I know how difficult these wildlife shots can be. ( even if they are in a zoo, can be tough) Nice work

[another view]

Very sharp and very tight, good job here. Two things - like it was mentioned, the side lighting makes the black go completely dark with no detail. Also like to see a little more red to the wing.

Birds are very difficult to photograph, and I have a lot of respect for people who do it well. This is probably a better - and certainly tighter - shot of a red wing blackbird than I have!