Female Blackbird

Got a very close shot with the long telephoto lens

Blackbird, female

This female landed really close to me, and I was able to get a very clean shot. The wind was blowing, so reeds were dancing back and forth, and one would cover then uncover this bird. You can see that the tail is partly obscured by the out of focus reed—the darker green stripe on the left side of the photo.

It was a brilliant sunny day, but with the lens settings I have to use, it doesn’t really look like it. ISO 200, 1/800th, f/9. Those are very aggressive settings; they would not work for a moving subject at this magnification. But I wanted good detail, so chose a low ISO and tried to get a good shot by holding very still. My subject was wobbling on the reed slowly, but it worked, so I won’t complain.

Timing was an issue; as noted, there were reeds moving. Here is what most of the shots looked like: