A fairy wren out of mating plumage
There are several species of fairy wren in Australia, and I’m not sure which species this one is. It is not in mating plumage – the splendid and superb fairy wren go bright blue for mating, instead of dull brown. No matter their plumage, however, they are rather hard to photograph, because they are forever bouncing around. That’s why I’m rather glad to have a shot of a stationary fairy wren.
There’s another reason. These birds are rather small, so I had the 2x teleconverter on the 70-200mm f/2.8 GM II lens to get this shot. I wasn’t zoomed all the way out to 400mm – the effective focal length is “just” 274mm. But this is a 2505 x 1670 pixel crop from a full frame of 9504 x 6336 – that not bad detail considering the tele converter is involved.
The sun was out, the clouds were negligible, and this was shot at ISO 160, f/5.6, 1/2000. This was using the A7RV Bird subject recognition.
Click on the images below to see them larger. The first is the original full frame, the second the crop.
