I'm an old man with not much photo experience but you don't have to be gentle  cause I want to learn.

OP your composition is excellent. Green and red are complimentary colors so they make each other stand out.

I'm no photographer....

Obviously people will bring up the focus. Zoomed in a little more or crisper.

I love the subject, colors, and balance (where you placed the bird).

Neat picture!

I agree with this.

However, my first impression is that it looks like a super tight crop, or maybe that's just photobucket's low image quality hosing you.

I can't see the exif data in your image, so what lens, camera, etc did you use?

That was exactly my first thought. Like it's not necessarily out of focus, but cropped waaaaay closer than the sensor is capable of rendering as there doesn't seem to be any single part of the picture that's tack sharp.

Yes it is cropped. This is the Full data from the original.
Not the best presentation of the data. I did a rough copy past of it.


EBR

EXIF — this group of metadata is encoded in 65,526 bytes (64.0k)

Camera Model Name NIKON D3100
Orientation Horizontal (normal)
Software Ver.1.01
Modify Date 2015:05:14 06:57:46
23 hours, 18 minutes, 35 seconds ago
Exposure Time 1/200
F Number 10.00
Exposure Program Not Defined
Exif Version 0221
Date/Time Original 2015:05:14 06:57:46
23 hours, 18 minutes, 35 seconds ago
Create Date 2015:05:14 06:57:46
23 hours, 18 minutes, 35 seconds ago
Components Configuration Y, Cb, Cr, -
Compressed Bits Per Pixel 4
Exif Image Size 4,608 × 3,072
Make NIKON CORPORATION
Exposure Compensation 0
Max Aperture Value 5.7
Metering Mode Multi-segment
Light Source Unknown
Flash Off, Did not fire
ISO 400
Color Space sRGB
Sharpness Normal
Contrast Normal
Saturation Normal
Focal Length 200.0 mm
Maker Note Nikon (11,390 bytes binary data)
User Comment

Sub Sec Time 60
Sub Sec Time Original 60
Sub Sec Time Digitized 60
Flashpix Version 0100
Interoperability Index R98 - DCF basic file (sRGB)
Interoperability Version 0100
Sensing Method One-chip color area
File Source Digital Camera
Scene Type Directly photographed
CFA Pattern [Green,Blue][Red,Green]
Custom Rendered Normal
Exposure Mode Auto
White Balance Auto
Digital Zoom Ratio 1
Focal Length In 35mm Format 300 mm
Scene Capture Type Landscape
Gain Control Low gain up
Subject Distance Range Unknown
GPS Version ID 2.2.0.0
Compression JPEG (old-style)
Resolution 300 pixels/inch
Thumbnail Length 8,989
Y Cb Cr Positioning Co-sited

How much did you crop the image and what size lens? The EXIF says a Nikon 3100, right? To me it looks pixelated like it was cropped.

Composition and exposure look good. Color is just fine.

He didn't really answer the question, but guessing from the exif, I'd point the finger at a 55-200 kit lens, with way too much cropping and not nearly enough foot zoom.

EBR, what program are you using to edit the photo?  Even though it's pixelated, your eye has caught on to how it should look and bravo for that.  I wouldn't worry too much about it, since I'm sure you'll take better photos in the future.  One thing I would've done is change the saturation values in the image just a bit.  The green leaves are overpowering the red bird just a bit.  You can do one of a couple things, either change the red saturation value to higher, or the green saturation to lower, or you can do both so that they more or less even out.  

You can do this, at least in Photoshop, by going to Adjustments>Hue/Saturation and you'll see the sliders. Change the "Master" dropdown to either red or green, then hit the leaf or bird with the eyedropper to make sure you got the correct value, then change the slider up or down.  Hopefully this helps.  You can do this with the bird, and hit its breast with the eyedropper, then change the hue slider very slightly to make it more of a deep reddish than orangish.  You can also control the highlight a bit to make it darker and that might bring out the deep red a bit too.

If you don't have PS, I'm sure there are very similar adjustments you can make in your program of choice.  

Yes it is the D3100 with 55-200 kit. That's all I have for now. I know it has some major limitations but I do the best I can with it.

For color adjustment I used Perfect effects 9.  I use a version of photo shop for cropping and some touch up like getting dust/scratches. I have the PC version 5.5 we used to use where I worked for a couple years. It's an old version but it's all I have.

EBR

Here is the full picture with out adjustment. Its the JPG not RAW file.





Hope this helps with the evaluation.

Thanks to all.


EBR

OP I think you did pretty good cropping what you had...obviously cropping that hard is going to hurt your resolution and there's no cheap solution other than get closer As has been mentioned your cropping composition is good...now, what follows is personal preference and is worth less than you paid for it...

In your EXIF it shows you using f10...for this kind of shot IMHO that's kinda tight...had you chosen something like f8 or f6.3 you'd have been able to crank up your shutter speed much higher than 1/200th...this would not hurt your sharpness at all..an OLD rule of thumb is try to use         1/(effective focal length) as your bottom end shutter speed...in this case with the effective focal length of 300mm (200mm plus the 1.5 crop factor), that would put you seeking a SS of 1/300. when you hand hold , faster SS is better....one point to keep in mind is that usually lens are not at their sharpest wide open (even pro level glass gets 'slightly' sharper stopped down) so when you can avoid shooting wide open (in the case of the 55-200 I think wide open is 5.6?) that's a good thing...

Thanks hsvhobbit !

Your opinion was worth the Arfcom standard price of 87 cents

Now I have paid membership of $24 so still have money to pay for more opinions

I'll keep it in mind and try to use this new knowledge at the next opportunity.  As I said I'm new to this higher end photo taking stuff but have been playing with this camera for a couple three years now and felt it was time to ask for help as my photos were not getting any better.  You should have seen the photos I took the first year I had the camera.


Thanks again for your help.


EBR

Best piece of advice I can give you for birds and other critters : get as close as you can. Depending on the animal and the environment, that may be 5 feet, or 50 yards or more. This is especially important with a kit lens and a low tier dslr. They just can't resolve quite as much detail as a better lens/sensor combo could. Maximize your result by getting in close.

Cropping is fine. Overcropping does more harm than good as you can see from the above comments.

Aperture shutter speed iso etc. Your lens will be happy at f/8. This means to get a solid 1/320 or better in anything other than bright sunlight you will have to crank the iso. I can't speak to the camera you have but a lot of my pictures are shot on aperture priority. Sometimes I set the iso myself, sometimes I use the auto iso. It works great.

Other times I do everything on manual. Just depends on the situation. Get out there and shoot. It's the only way to get better.