A steady hand and the right light are key to a good picture, your on the right path. Might add it's a path you may wish you'd not went down, photography can be as addicting and expensive as hunting and guns. I'm running 4 Nikons, 2 Fuji's and a Samsung.
I could not agree more. I hardly ever take a gun to the field anymore and probably get more enjoyment out of it than when I was really hunting hard. Photography requires many of the same skills as hunting like playing the wind and understanding where your game is coming from, but also requires you to understand the lighting and angles of shadows, etc.
My advice would be to put your camera on manual mode and really play with all of the settings. Take as many pictures as you can possibly stand, but really try to get the lighting right in the camera before you take it to photoshop. The less editing, the better. Also, the beauty in photography is that every eye sees differently and has different preferences. Find your style, and don't worry about what anyone else says! Here are a few unedited photos from my quail hunt this weekend.