The Nilgiri Flycatcher

[Prem Sagar]

I shot this in Ooty last week in Botanical garden.

The garden is a great place for birding...but only at the top. Everywhere else, it is very crowded. You can easily spot Nilgiri flycatchers, Black & orange flycatchers, Grey headed canary flycatchers, Eurasian blackbirds, great tits, Pied bushchat, etc here.

Settings:
Nikon D90
70-300 F4.5-5.6 VR AF-S lens
ISO 200, F5.6, 1/15s
Focal length 300mm
Aperture priority

I had climbed a nearby slope just next to the thick tree to get an eye-level view. It was shot at 3.15 pm when it was very gloomy and about to rain. Inspite of the low shutter speed, the image is pretty decent.

Your comments please!

Cheers,
Prem

[AB Apana]

Nice image Prem. A bit soft and lacking definition, though. I would have pushed the ISO to 400 or to 640 to get a faster shutter speed.

Apana

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Prem,

It is great that you got a eyelevel perspective. I agree with the composition. It is tough to get sharp shots at low shutter speeds. I agree with Apana that bumping up the ISO is the way to go. If there is a choice between noise and sharpness, then definitely sharpness wins.

I would suggest that you add a monopod to your kit. It arrests atleast the vertical axis from moving down and helps a lot in increasing the sharpness. I had pulled off one Crested Serpent Eagle shot at 1/15th second using a monopod.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi