On my last stop on the way out of Henriticus City Park in Chester VA, on the deck overlooking the only open water in the old oxbow marsh, I heard this Carolina Wren singing up a storm in the trees on either side, but, though I tried several times, I could never locate it. Carolina Wren is one of my challenge birds. I don’t see them often, and, though I have several shots and a bit of video, I still don’t have a shot that really satisfies me. Still there was lots to take in on the sunset marsh, and I was using the zoom to frame everything from the broad expanse to little bits of marshy abstract pattern. When I turned to leave, I caught a glimpse of movement down low in the trees under the deck. Sure enough the wren was skulking in fairly dense cover down there. Then it finally popped up in the open and I zoomed out to 840mm equivalent and got on it. I had little hope the new camera would be able to lock focus. It was dark in there, and there was no shot clear of some obstructions in the foreground, so I was surprised when the green focus indicator popped up on the second try with the bird sharp beyond the foreground twigs. Life is good. I took several shots, and then remembered to shoot a bit of video. Handheld video at 840mm equivalent…right! I am totally amazed at how good the image stabilization on the Canon SX40is is. Though I wandered a bit, there is no camera jitter. Amazing.

Canon SX40is at 840mm equivalent field of view. Both shots f5.8 @ 1/100th @ ISO 800. (Again, impressive to be able to hand-hold 840mms at 1/100th of a second…and I am really pleased with the image quality at ISO 800 in relatively difficult lighting.)

Processed in Lightroom for Intensity, Clarity, and Sharpness. Cropped slightly for image scale and composition.

And here is the video, after processing for Sharpness and Contrast in Sony Vegas. The original is full HD. You can see this in 720p.