I took this picture of male cardinals during one of my bird workshops in southern Texas. We shoot from a blind, and we see quite a few species that accept our offerings of food to come within telephoto range. Small birds usually have extremely fast wing beats, and that necessitates a very fast shutter speed in order to render the tips of the wings tack sharp. My settings for this shot were 1/4000, f/9, and 2500 ISO. When the light level is low, however, the ISO has to be raised quite a bit in order to maintain a super fast shutter. It then becomes a debate between using a high ISO or accepting blur in the images. A tough call. I always opt for the increased ISO because the Topaz software used in post-processing can usually make the increased noise disappear. My next Texas bird workshop is in May 14 -17.
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