Grey Fantail

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Grey Fantail
Photo Information
Copyright: Sue Thomson (SueThomson) Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Note Writer [C: 53 W: 0 N: 73] (238)
Genre: Animals
Medium: Color
Date Taken: 2008-05-04
Categories: Birds
Camera: Canon EOS 400D, 75-300 Canon EF
Exposure: f/5.6, 1/8 seconds
Photo Version: Original Version
Date Submitted: 2008-05-08 3:17
Viewed: 118
Points: 5
[Note Guidelines] Photographer's Note
Firstly, I apologise for this shot not being sharp and focused. My photography skills aren’t quite up to catching fast little wild birds in thick scrub!

I decided to put this one up because I couldn’t find one of these little birds from Australia on TN. The photo was taken in the Enoggera Reservoir area of Brisbane and I found him whilst trekking the 5 km walk from the Brisbane Forest Information Centre.

Grey Fantails (Rhipidura fuliginosa) are 14-17 cm long and are lively grey birds that resemble a pale version of a Willy Wagtail. They have a white eyebrow and streak behind the eye, white throat, black gorget, buff underbody, broad fan-shaped tail with white tip and sides. In flight, their wings are broadly, rounded and tail very long.

They have a high-pitched ascending twitter, also a sharp single note.

They live in rainforest, scrubs, open forest, woodland, lantana, mangroves, riparian vegetation and well-vegetated parks and gardens. Widespread in Greater Brisbane Region. Present all year, but are more common in autumn-winter.

It was quite shady where the photo was taken, the bird was flying quickly back and forth between the branches and my camera was on Program mode as I was having trouble choosing a setting where my picture was not coming up dark on the viewer. I noticed that the shutter speed when it was taken was 1/8 sec so that may have been why I had some camera shake. Happy to hear from you as to what settings might have worked for me to get a better shot!
Gert-Paassen, JPlumb has marked this note useful
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To JPlumb: Grey FantailSueThomson 1 05-13 03:15
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Critiques [Translate]

Sue,
Very cool cute little birdie.. Rats on the focus..
I love finding different birds to photograph...

Jane

Hello Sue,

A pity and indeed no sharpness.
Good reason to try this bird good of sharpness to captured next time.
It's a beautiful bird.
I give you the point for the notes.

Gert

Hi Sue, nice capture of a bird I haven't seen before. When I see something new I have to give it a try.

You shot this at 1/8 second and I'm guessing at 300mm. Even at 75mm, it's too slow. As a rule of thumb, I try to keep my speed up with or greater than my focal length. For example for 75mm, I would try to shoot at 1/90, for 300mm at 1/300. You have to have extremely steady hands (or a tripod) to attempt something slower. Of course, that's not always possible so there are a couple of other things you might try. Bracing against something might help, or in a tough shot like this, if you have to shoot slower, something that might help is to go for a continuous fire. Shoot off a burst of five shots, as an example. I've found that shooting like this can make a middle of the burst shot steadier, than if you try to snap off one shot.

Thanks, John

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