My Close Encounter with Mr Green

This morning I had a close encounter with a pair of Green Broadbill ( Calyptomena viridis 15-17 cm) at Sungai Sedim Recreation Park for 2 hours. The sighting of this species is not easy as this is a forest bird. It is very difficult to see this bird on a dense lowland forest, moreover the greenish feather made it a very effective camouflage.

Is it my lucky day ? This pair was willing to perch steady on the unblocked tree branches. On some occasion, it even came down to the eye level. I shot about 10 GB of photo with my Canon 7D and EF 800 F5.6 IS lens. I shot this subject mostly without flash light in aperture priority mode, in order to get a more natural color of the feather. Since I was shooting under the forest shade, I have to struggle with very low shutter speed of 1/15. The 4 stops IS function of the EF 800 really useful in low shutter speed shooting, I managed to get high percentages of photos in good sharpness.

Shot without flash

ISO 1000 F8 or F5.6 Aperture Priority Mode

This one was shot under the rain

You can view more photos of the Green Broadbill at  Visit this Green Broadbill gallery.

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