First shot with new lens. <Spoiler Alert! > It's a bluejay.

[Scott Stephen]

First attempt at uploading. Hope everyone can see a bird or I'm going to not feel so smart...
This is a first attempt with my new lens. It is a bluejay on our deck on an overcast 6:60 pm. Canon 70-200 IS II, @f/2.8, 1/320 I think. Shot in .jpg and cropped. Very slightly tuned in LR3. I think the camera WB was set for "shade." I think "cloudy" might have been a slightly better setting?
I was aiming at his shoulder with center-dot-only focus. Aperature priority. His back is very sharp, but could his head be a little sharper? If so, would that be because his head was moving and I needed faster shutter, or does my lens front-focus?
Should I have used shutter priority? He was fairly still in this particular shot.

C&C welcome!

[Scott Stephen]

Yep. No bird. Try again.

[Scott Stephen]

Same jay, facing forward.

[Tim Bond]

A couple of pretty nice photos. Maybe play around with DOF a little before thinking of front focusing problems. Your bluejays look a lot better than mine!!
Tim

[Dizzy]

Hi Scott,

I liked the shot, but immediately felt it needed some additional PP. You
did some "tuning" on it, and I've added a bit more.

Here is your image after some additional PP (hope it's OK to share it, and
my apologies if not). The vignette was added to help blur out the background.

505cg3-2.jpg

Mike

[Scott Stephen]

Cool. Makes him look more aggressive somehow.

[Scott Stephen]

A couple of pretty nice photos. Maybe play around with DOF a little before thinking of front focusing problems. Your bluejays look a lot better than mine!!
Tim

Thanks! Yes, I can't believe how shallow the DOF gets when the bird is only about 10-12 feet away like this. I may need to stop it down to get just a little more room for error in focusing! I have used the blinds plus some taped-on newspaper to make my back door's window into a bird-blind.