Shot with a Canon 7D body + Canon 500mm f/4L + Canon 1.4X TC II, on a Gitzo 3541LS carbon fibre tripod with a Benro GH2 gimbal head.
This was shot at 1/40th sec @ f/8, ISO 200. I shot other photos at a higher ISO to get a better shutter speed, but this one is acceptably sharp, I think.
Oriental Dwarf Kingfishers visit my corner of India at the start of the monsoon season, to breed. They make nest holes in the banks of streams in heavy forests. The mud on this guy's beak is from this nest-digging activity.
Sharpness is OK for me, but I think as a general rule, you are really pushing your luck shooting birds at this SS, and the bump to at least ISO 400 wouldn't have impacted image quality enough to worry about.
I would always rather have a sharp image with a bit more noise, than a noiseless image that is unsharp.
Lovely, colorful bird and nice portrait, and the image does look sharp enough. Your camera is fully capable of an ISO at 800 all day long, as long as you do not underexpose your images. That is when you are going to see more noise. I rarely lower my ISO to below 800 for bird photography. As Randy pointed out, noise is pretty easy to remove but if your shot isn't sharp, you're up the creek without a paddle. I feel the reds are a bit hot in this image. I took the image into Photoshop and reduced the reds a little bit and feel it improved the image. I would love to see and photograph one of these birds one day.
Oriental Dwark Kingfisher
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