Good shot, I got her sister last week, had to look twice, same pose and wings are almost in the same position with a nice blurred background. We've got (7) feeders and the little aerobatic critters are wearing them out from sun up to past sundown. When I have time, I set up my camera on a tripod and use a remote to trigger shots while I sit on the screened deck with a cold one, get lucky sometimes and get a decent shot. They're so fast it's hard to catch them, been trying to learn their habits, they usually pause/hover near the feeder for a couple seconds before landing to feed.

I upgraded from a T3i to the 7D Mk II, love it. Nothing wrong with the T3i's, I have two of those, the first one came with the 18-135 USM and it works great. When the STM version came out I purchased that one and it is almost dead silent when focusing. I got it as a factory refurb but sent it back for another check over as the focus wasn't near as sharp as my old USM, Canon adjusted it and for a kit lens it's now a pretty decent piece. With the new Mk II you can also do some fine tuning to the camera/lens, helps get them to a closer focus match.

Yep me too, I'm just an ol' worn out country boy that shoots for fun now. Still running my design studio doing but going at it with a slower pace until the day they find me face down in a bucket of paint.

Thanks Dave, maybe the edits will be to your liking, not as intense in color but more natural for the vegetation, just wanted to be sure you were OK with someone working on your image. This is from the first image you posted.

Lightroom edit

(Download)

Too big! you got that right, we have to consider to a little lady that small that a 160 pound dog looks as big as a horse does to us, I'm sure it's a bit overwhelming to her.

Condolences and Congratulations! Making a change this drastic is hard, when I quit doing paid people shots and started back shooting nature, when and where I wanted, the FUN came back into photography. I told a budding photographer last week I had rather crawl around on the ground all day chasing a bug to shoot than do another wedding in a nice clean air conditioned church. After nearly 50 years as a graphic artist and free-lance photographer I've seen the businesses go to the dogs with the amateurs and their computers with a CD full of clipart become instant 'designers' and newbies with digital cameras doing paid gigs, then having to go online and post questions of what settings they should have used to get better pictures. Hey, to each their own, they have to start somewhere, anyway hope you're as a content in a few months as I am now after making my change.

Looking better, there is a little noise in the sky but not noticeable until you zoom in, might show up in a larger print but not enough to be distracting from the beautiful scene.

Does your prints match what you see on your monitor?

Here's the final recipe for what I did to correct it to my system, I'm curious how Lightroom numbers convert to the program you are using, as your posted image is still a bit over saturated in the vegetation.

In the Develop module, Basic Settings:
Exposure -0.48
Contrast -43
Highlights -76
Shadows +50
Whites +17
Blacks -24
Clarity +10
Vibrance -7
Saturation -12

Details:
Sharpening 36
Masking 89
Noise Reduction, Luminance 46

If you'd like I will post the doctored image to compare settings.

Dave, post your results, would like to see how it translated. As I understand, the conversion on UHH may change how images display.
The texture of the skin is what makes an elephant look real, the 'recipe' I sent shouldn't smooth out the wrinkles, but to enhance the detail and help correct the color cast and contrast as viewed on my monitor. Other viewers may see something totally different on their monitors.

That helped.
BTW, great shot Dave, bet that was a fun trip to be on and get to photo those majestic beasts.
I pulled the image up in Lightroom, on my calibrated monitor the original looks a bit over saturated and contrasty, vegetation has unnatural greens and yellows, but the colors may look correct on your monitor?
I tried these settings:
Temperature +5
Exposure -1.0
Contrast -43
Highlights -75
Shadows +50
Whites +17
Blacks -24
Clarity +10
Vibrance -7
Saturation -12
This brought out more detail, got rid of the hard shadows, removed the hot highlights and made the vegetation more natural.

The second version lost a bit of the finer detail, appears that dropping the contrast that was created from the harsh sunlight would help more than softening the texture.

Even an ugly person can be made to look very attractive in the right settings, as well as a beautiful person may look terrible with the wrong settings. The artist that understands this can make a "silk purse from a sow's ear". Some of the subjects painted by the great masters were not the most beautiful people, but they brought out the beauty with creative use of light.

Those kittens are cute! When they're small they look like all feet, sometimes the toes are more like a dewclaw without a bone structure, just a small pad with a claw. I had several of these cats years ago, a friend gave us a kitten with 6 toes on each foot so we called her Six Pack. Most of the offspring were polydactyl and the gene was passed through several generations. They interbred cousins/cousins, one even had 7 toes but was badly deformed with the hind legs almost turned backwards.

I have a Wacom Intuos-3, 9x12 with a 5-button mouse and the pen. The mouse can be set to work just like a standard wireless mouse or as a absolute position pointer mouse. The pen is great for touchup, painting, sketching but a bit unhandy for menu selecting and as a general point/click device to me. I've used everything from 12x18 down to 3x7 and find the 9x12 suits my work type better. It supports a two monitor setup and you can define how much of each monitor is covered by the tablet surface. Whatever you get will take some getting used to, it'll be very awkward at first but you'll never want to use a plain mouse again.

Great colorful capture. We've had our feeders out for a couple months and only had a few visitors until this past week, now it's dangerous to walk outside, they're swarming. I set up some bare branches near the feeders so they have a place to sit and I could get some shots without the feeders in them. Those little critters are fascinating aerobatics, amazing how fast they can move seemingly in any direction. They're so territorial, even if they're not hungry they'll guard the feeders with dedication, usually takes a few weeks for them to start being social with one another where several will feed on one sugar pot.

A Redtail Hawk is hard for me to get close enough for a decent shot, they are very wary of any movement and stalking them has been impossible for me. Got a few shots from far away but nothing with feather detail. I can see one sitting on a snag or utility pole waiting for a mouse to run across the road and they'll sit there until I stop the vehicle and before I can stick the lens out the window, they're gone, if I drive on by they won't move a bit. I do have a nest spotted and plan to set up my camo blind and wait for them to get used to it then sit and wait for them to come and go.