Wire Tailed Swallow

[Murugan Anantharaman]

Tried to do some birding on a Sunday morning today, but rain played spoil sport. Had a nasty session with light and could barely manage anything decent. Spotted this swallow oblivious to everything around it comfortably perched on a wire preening itself. More of a record shot.

Am begining to feel the pinch of a longer lens quite a bit off late :(. The noise is due to the crop and light also I guess.

Nikon D7000,f/5.6,SS 1/2500,ISO 800,300mm,ec +.3 to recover some of the facial highlights. Cropped by 25%.

[Mrudul Godbole]

Nice that you got it sitting peacefully, else photographing a swallow can be difficult. The eye contact is nice. The raindrops on the wire give a nice feel of the rains. The long tail looks nice. I would have preferred a vertical composition, but that would have made it smaller in the frame. I think a slight lower shutter speed would have sufficed and that would have reduced the noise due to the high ISO. Thanks for sharing.

[Sabyasachi Patra]

I agree with Mrudul's comments. However, in vertical mode, the subject will look even smaller. You now actually need a long lens so that the amount of crop is less. In wildlife photograph, especially in bird photography a long lens is indispensable. Go for it. The lens depreciates less unlike the cameras. So the lens will retain its value for a long time.