Spotted Towhee

One of the many small birds I spotted at the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge on Oct. 27, 2010.  I used fill flash to help light this fellow as he was in uneven lighting.  I used a Canon 7D, 1/250, f6.3, ISO1000, Canon 400mm f5.6L lens, flash fired at -2/3 flash compensation.  A good question I would ask is, why use ISO1000 if the flash is augmenting the lighting?  The answer is, I’m not sure but I may have been testing out the auto ISO setting and the camera picked it.  Or, I chose ISO1000 to test the camera’s higher ISO ability.  I don’t recall for sure, but, I would normally take advantage of the external flash and use ISO400 at the most, if not even a lower number.  Afterall, if you have plenty of light, why not crank the ISO down low for a higher quality photo–especially on a perched shot like this?  I was fortunate this one came out as nice as it did!