The red-billed leiothrix is a colorful, confiding Old World babbler, much loved by the Chinese, many of whom think that caging a bird is a way of honoring it. But many wild specimens remain, as for example these two. Photographing the leiothrixes yesterday, I discovered the pleasures of luring birds. My friends had made a small clearing in the woods at the very large Hangzhou Botanical Gardens, covering a log with moss and sticking branches in the ground to serve as perches. On these we rubbed a cut-open apple. The leiothrixes were regular customers. Knowing that birds were certain to come, I ceased being a bird hunter and was able to concentrate solely on being a bird photographer. My biggest concern was choosing the right aperture. Because the D3S allows me to shoot comfortably at ISO 1600 and higher, I could choose a very narrow aperture if I wanted and still have plenty of shutter speed. If the bird was in profile, the choice was easy--wide open aperture, pleasingly blurry BG. When the bird was at an angle, or as in this case when a second bird was in the frame, I had to strike a balance between getting the entire subject in focus (which meant a narrow aperture) and keeping the BG as indistinct as possible. When the leiothrix on the right joined the one on the left, I decided that f6.3 would give me the proper balance. Here is the result. I suppose that one could guarantee oneself a blurry BG at any aperture if one placed large greenish posters behind the perches (ā la Alan Murphy), but my friends and I aren't at that level of engineering yet. The BG here is, therefore, the handiwork of nature, while the perch is the handiwork of man.
Device: Nikon D3S
Lens: VR 600mm F/4G
Focal Length: 600mm
Aperture: F/6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/400
Exposure Mode: Aperture Priority
Exposure Comp.: +0.33
ISO Sensitivity: ISO 1250
Subject Distance: 5.6 m
Photoshoppery: The typical NR on BG plus sharpening of all in-focus elements. A bit of extra sharpening on right-hand bird's head. Very small crop.







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