A cozy blackbird among the Dame's Rocket and other good colors

Hello, folks! Here's a picture I took with the Canon 7D and 200mm f2.8 + 1.4x teleconverter. That gives us a focal length of 280mm! O yes! Technical specifications are these: iso400, 1/1600, f4. What we have here amounts to about 92% of the original capture! I'll be more than eager to hear your thoughts and opinions! Many thanks in advance...

And a technical question for the erudite folks. What sort of aperture setting would have gotten the tail in focus? It's a moot point, aesthetically speaking, because I wanted the flowers to look like they do, but I'm curious. Would f8 have done it? f11?

Absolutely gorgeous BG and techs look great but this pose does not do much for me.

Jack Breakfast said:

What sort of aperture setting would have gotten the tail in focus? It's a moot point, aesthetically speaking, because I wanted the flowers to look like they do, but I'm curious. Would f8 have done it? f11?

Click to expand...

One easy way to remember it is that DOF doubles each time the f-number doubles.
In other words, to double the DOF, you need to shut down 2 stops.

Looks to me here like you needed to about quadruple the DOF, so f/16 should have been sufficient, although you would probably also have had to focus a bit more toward the shoulder
rather than the eye to take advantage of the part of the DOF that lies in front of the focus point.

Thanks Mike, very much. That's a helpful DOF lesson. RE the blackbird's pose: I certainly have other frames with the RWBB posing in a more typical fashion, but I'm most fond of this particular split-second. I'm glad you like the BG; I was in awe of this particular colorscape while I was shooting this bad-hearted fellow...

I lime out of the ordinary shots, so get my tick of approval, hehehe... that poor little bird is falling apart at the seams, very cool especially for such a short focal length. Nice detail in the blacks and light and color looks nice all over Jack

If you don't know about it, check out http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html
which allows you to enter different variables to determine your depth of field.

Also remember that depth of field isn't solely determined by the fstop. The
distance between your subject and background and the distance between
you and the subject will also influence the depth of field.

For example, you shot the black bird at F4. You could increase your depth
of field simply by moving back a little bit. You can see this by just adjusting
the Subject Distance at that site I posted.

Doug

Thank you, Doug. A great resource, to be sure!

Jack, let me say that this is one of your better compositions...and I love the BG!! That is one evil pose...it took me a few moments to orientate the head position...the more I look at it the more I like it but I have to admit that I would prefer a more conventional pose, glad you say you got some of those too.

Yes, this is what we might call a "normal" and "pleasing" composition, I do believe! If it was good enough for the ancient Greeks and Romans, it's good enough for me. Speaking of, I wonder if RWBBs divebombed the Ancient Greeks and Romans like they divebomb me? It would have been fine for the soldiers with their magnificent plumed helmets, but what of the citizens in their togas and the like? A man shudders to dream...