Through a window

There are several interesting aspects to this photograph of a blue grosbeak that visited the feeder just outside my office window. First, I took this picture through the glass of the window. I did this so the bird would be less likely to be frightened away by seeing my movements in the office. Second, I was sitting at my desk when I shot it. Third, I used a 500mm f/4 Canon telephoto plus a 1.4x teleconverter giving me 700mm of focal length. Fourth, because the bird was only 8 feet away from the camera, I had to use an extension tube placed between the lens and the body to focus that close. This is one of the coolest uses of extension tubes -- to allow long lenses to be used within the minimum focusing distance. My settings were 1/125, f/8, and 250 ISO. I mounted the lens and camera on a car mount, the type designed to be used on the roof of a safari vehicle. This was placed on my desktop. The out of focus green background shows distant trees that were thrown totally out of focus due to the shallow depth of field.