I think that part of your challenge here is the slowness of the lens from an aperture standpoint. F/5.6 is pretty slow and it also makes the DOF large enough that too much is in focus in your photo and it makes it difficult to separate the bird from the rest of the scene a bit. Unfortunately that is the lens that you have now so you just have to work with it if and until you can get something faster lens wise. I would suggest you get an app for your phone or tablet for DOF. You can get them for free or a couple dollars. That way you can plug in the parameters of the camera, lens and distance and get feedback on the acceptable DOF. The closer you shoot toward the 300mm end of the lens the shallower the DOF will be at a given aperture. Shorter length of lens will give greater depth of field at any given aperture. For example, my DOF calculator indicates that a 1.6 crop camera with a 600mm lens at f/4 shot at 30' has a DOF of 0.11 feet... While a 300mm lens at f/5.6 on the 1.6 crop camera has a DOF of 0.63 feet at 30 feet away. Almost 6 times the total depth of field.

The other thing you can do to deal with the limitations of your current lens is to shoot in RAW and crop a great deal to isolate the subject more. That will not be a great solution with a lot of cropping as you will greatly reduce the resolution of the picture. The other thing that could be done is to use post processing software to reduce sharpness or blur the surrounding elements and isolate the subject more. You can also do that with vignetting tools and use that to frame and isolate the subject.

Best,
Todd Ferguson

We all make mistakes in sometimes not asking the right question or not knowing the question to ask. I have made less than ideal purchases in my hobbies even though I try hard to not do that. Sometimes education costs money in one way or another. The good news is you bought what are quality filters. Cookie, You can always resell them and get something that may be more useful. A good CPL if you don't have one or a ColorChecker Passport. Or there will be those who also say you should have them for protection. It might be a good idea if you were not using hoods. I am not sure there are totally correct answers...only those that make logical sense to our own manner of thinking. Some on here have 10 cameras and 25 lenses, but I would rather have one or perhaps 2 great cameras an a half dozen lenses ultimately. Does that make either of us wrong and the other right...probably not. I myself learned about the ColorChecker Passport about 8 years ago. But I sort of ignored it and only got into it a couple years ago. Fortunately I shot a lot of photos in RAW and I can go back and redo some of them as I want. After using the CCP it was sort of a forehead slap and saying what didn't I get this sooner... We all do the best we can under the various circumstances...live and hopefully continue to learn...

I found the Canon DPP software to be decent for edits but not a manager of images... There are tons of choices for editing too...

Best,
Todd Ferguson

I tend to strongly agree with you...he is spinning it in many respects in my opinion...

Best,
Todd Ferguson

Good points but keep in mind that Exposure Compensation is nothing more than changing the shutter speed or aperture in most cases depending upon the mode you are shooting.

Best,
Todd Ferguson

I look at shooting RAW and JPEG in this type of situation as insurance of a sort. The RAW is for insurance in case there is a major issue with a photo that may be very desired but the JPEG just didn't come out well. Storage is cheap. The JPEGs can all be delivered and used by the end user as they are or with some simple edits. Today I wish I had RAW files for shots I took 15 years ago as JPEGs. You may decide you would like to go back and edit RAW files years from now if only you had the files. Skills improve and interests change over time. But if you don't have the RAW files you are limited in what you can do with the images.

Best,
Todd Ferguson

Cookie, I never use filters on my lens to try to protect the lens. I guess I feel I get better bump protection from the lens hoods and just about always have them on even when indoors. So, I would go to hood use and leave the UV filter off. Using a unnecessary filter is just putting another piece of glass in front of your lens that was not part of the original lens design parameters. Then there is the whole issue of the quality of the filter in both the glass and in the coatings. That can vary widely and is why you can get a set of filters included free with a purchase to paying several hundred dollars for a single filter. Filters were and can be needed for film photography, even B&W film.

A UV filter is not needed in digital photography. I might use a neutral density filter if it is very bright out and I am trying to shoot with a wide open aperture and very slow shutter speed. An example would be to show the smoothing of clouds or water flowing in a landscape. Think of the ND filters as sunglasses for your lens. The only other filter I would possibly use is a Circular Polarizer to control reflections. But even this would mostly be used for Landscape shooting in my opinion. Other filter effects can be more easily simulated in Post Processing. My local camera store literally has large boxes of both new and used filters for sale in their used equipment area. They are largely not in demand for those shooting digital images.

As for Post Processing and managing your photos I would suggest you consider Lightroom and perhaps later using Photoshop if needed. I have nearly 60K images in my Lightroom catalog. I worked for decades in digital imaging and document management and Lightroom has very power ways to manage and organize the photos you shoot. I also do virtually all of my PP in Lightroom. There are powerful tools that enable one to quickly and accurately make corrections or changes to one or a number of photos. There is a learning curve but I found the Laura Shoe video on Lightroom to be very useful in learning the basics. She covers topics in small manageable video bites. There are also many users of Lightroom and other video resources on YouTube you can take advantage of too. Shooting in RAW, using a ColorChecker Passport and Lightroom can make a big difference in your photography. I use the $10 per month CC option for Lightroom and Photoshop. Some use the purchased versions if they object to the monthly utility like fee. You get all the updates included with the monthly subscription and some features that are not included with the purchased versions. There are many tools out there to do PP including the DPP software from Canon, and I used that for a long time. But I found I really needed a better way to manage my images and that is what ultimately took me to Lightroom.

Best,
Todd Ferguson

Thanks for sharing Bill. I can understand that being your lens sweet spot. Do you have issues with DOF when the birds are very close with at crop body and long focal lengths. I would think the DOF could get very very shallow. I think you have a great combination for birding with the D500 and the 200-500!!!

Best,
Todd Ferguson

Your 7D is a crop sensor camera but you can use either EF-S or EF (full frame) lenses on it. The crop camera will narrow the field of view with a EF lens. EF mount lens is better option if you ever think you might go to a full frame Canon camera. The full frame camera cannot use a EF-S lens. The problem is that these all in one lenses are relatively slow aperture wise and are a compromise from a performance and Image Quality standpoint. 28-300 is over a 10x change in focal length. Most high quality zooms are in the 2-3x range....24-70mm or 70-200mm for example. Think about how often you use the short or long end of the lens. Many people shoot mostly between 35-135mm shots. That range of lens plus another longer lens may give you better IQ for the shots you shoot more often. Every lens is a compromise in certain ways. You have to decide which compromises you are willing to work with in your shooting.

Best,
Todd Ferguson

Keep in mind that histograms are useful tools but can also be misleading.
They are based on the JPEG settings that you are using in your camera even if you are shooting in RAW.
If you are shooting and applying changes to your JPEG image in camera, Picture Styles in Canon, the histogram will reflect these changes as will the image you see on your camera display screen.

Best,
Todd Ferguson

Watching a few of Joe Brady's Sekonic 758 metering videos on YouTube should help your understanding IMHO...

Best,
Todd Ferguson

I suspect they are just wanting to try to learn from the shots...
I use Flicker to look up photos taken with different camera and lens combinations that I may have or am interested in viewing.

Best,
Todd Ferguson

for renting the 24-70mm or even a 16-35mm perhaps...

With only 10' of space on a crop sensor you are going to need to balance the crop sensor angle of view reduction with the distortion that can come from going with wider angle lenses. There are videos on YouTube that discuss this issue of facial distortion with different focal lengths. Joe Brady has one or two IIRC. Also think about just bouncing the flash off the wall behind you if you can to create a large soft light source.

Best,
Todd Ferguson