Old, Old Perch

Yesterday morning I worked on creating a new bird photography set up. For a perch I used an old broken off section of a Redwood snag that used to be on our property. When they were doing a controlled burn for fire protection the snag was accidentally knocked over and destroyed. Just counting the rings on the small broken section shows that little piece to be over seventy-five years old. I can't imagine how old that snag must have been! The birds started using the new perch this afternoon. I spent a little bit of time photographing them from my photoblind. This Dark Eyed Junco was the best of the image I created. The composition is good using the rule of thirds with the eye being right on one of the so called power points. The head angle of the bird is great with the bird looking back making eye contact with the viewer with a highlight in the eye. The background is out of focus and non distracting and it is of a complimentary color to the perch which by itself is interesting with the moss. Image created with a Canon 7D and a Tamron 150-600mm lens at 500mm. Camera settings used were AV mode, ISO 800, F 8.0 at 1/160th of a sec. Camera was supported with a Manfrotto 055XPROB tripod with a Bogen ballhead.