Birds and Water Fowl

[21limited]

Did you put the hummingbird feeder back out?

Increase your shutter speed, say 400 minimum for a still subject and that'll help with camera shake/motion blur at telephoto distances. Depending on ones own personal hand shake.

The hummingbird, bump that up to 2000, 2500.

Ps. The Green Jay rocks!

It's one of the 6 of oneself dozen of.theother situations. You increase you shutter speed, buy using faster aperture, and you get out of focus wings because of Depth of Field. Reduce you shutter speed and you get blurry wings because of motion blur. But the absolute lowest for hummers is probably about 1/1000s.
1/1250 DOF increased by shootigfrom a longer distance.
2017-08-21-Ruby_Throated_Hummingbird-F by Norm Head, on Flickr

Much closer
1/4000 wing blur from lack of DoF. Already at ISO 1250 to 1/4000s
Birds-Ruby-throaated-Hummingbird by Norm Head, on Flickr

I found one image on flickr with good inflight wing detail.

ƒ 6.3 240mm 1/3200s 500 ISO. This year I'll give it try.


Loooking at the other images in the eries, it looks like he got lucky., the wings were back close to the body and incuded in teh ƒ6.3 DoF. Other images where the wings are spead wider they aren’t clear. SO, fast shutter speed hoping ot catch the wins in a burst might be the key.

I might even consider higher ISO and ƒ8 or ƒ11.
A project for the summer.
Hummers have ben spotted in migrating numbers, 100 mile sout of htere. Our feeders are out waiting for thier arrival.

I’ll also consider shooting from a little further away to increase DoF. I’ve always tried to get as close as posible.
I made a new plan Stan.

 

[Digger...]

It's one of the 6 of oneself dozen of.theother situations. You increase you shutter speed, buy using faster aperture, and you get out of focus wings because of Depth of Field. Reduce you shutter speed and you get blurry wings because of motion blur. But the absolute lowest for hummers is probably about 1/1000s.
1/1250 DOF increased by shootigfrom a longer distance.
2017-08-21-Ruby_Throated_Hummingbird-F by Norm Head, on Flickr

Much closer
1/4000 wing blur from lack of DoF. Already at ISO 1250 to 1/4000s
Birds-Ruby-throaated-Hummingbird by Norm Head, on Flickr

I found one image on flickr with good inflight wing detail.

ƒ 6.3 240mm 1/3200s 500 ISO. This year I'll give it try.


Loooking at the other images in the eries, it looks like he got lucky., the wings were back close to the body and incuded in teh ƒ6.3 DoF. Other images where the wings are spead wider they aren’t clear. SO, fast shutter speed hoping ot catch the wins in a burst might be the key.

I might even consider higher ISO and ƒ8 or ƒ11.
A project for the summer.
Hummers have ben spotted in migrating numbers, 100 mile sout of htere. Our feeders are out waiting for thier arrival.

I’ll also consider shooting from a little further away to increase DoF. I’ve always tried to get as close as posible.
I mae a new plan Stan.

They have the most iridescent feathers!

Wish we had hummers here, I'd enjoy this bird. Be so easy to capture since there just fluttering away in the same spot while eating.

 

[Jeff15]

Red Kite

 

[21limited]

The seond one looks good, although hard to make out the detail.. The first one looks good as well.

Thanks for the tips, I don't always pay attention to my settings. I just take high volumes of pictures and get one I like. I remember when film was pretty expensive and every shot counted.
I've become a spoiled hack.

Ya, I always see what I should have done when I look t them on my computer.

 

[21limited]

Moving right along….
Purple Martin on a uniqulyconstructed Martin house , at Rpndeau Provincial Park.
2024-05-15-RP-Purple-Martin by Norm Head, on Flickr

 

[Digger...]

Red Kite

View attachment 286133

Looks like a bird to me, pretty sure this is what a Red Kite looks like.

 

[Digger...]

How about a Killdeer

I've thought about that one, can't come up with a funny for one. Kill & Deer seems like a negative for me, I'll leave that joke up to other humans.

 

[21limited]

Isn't that a sequel to" kill Bill?"

 

[21limited]

I finally got a good day to get out and enjoy my feeder birds. 20 birds (from my blind) and recorded in Merlin, 5 I have images of, and a pair Piliated Woopeckers just came through. We saw them but no images.

Female Goldfinch
2025-04-27-Feeder-Goldfinch-F by Norm Head, on Flickr

Male Goldfinch
2025-04-27-Feeder-Goldfinch-Male by Norm Head, on Flickr

Dark Eyed Junco
2025-04-27-Feeder Dark Eyed Junco by Norm Head, on Flickr

White Throated Sparrow
2025-04-27-Feeder White Throated Sparrow by Norm Head, on Flickr

Common Grackle
2025-04-27-Feeder Grackle by Norm Head, on Flickr

Female Purple FInch
2025-04-27-Feeder-Purple FInch F by Norm Head, on Flickr

Purple FInch (Male)
2025-04-27-Feeder-Purple FInch Male by Norm Head, on Flickr

 

[21limited]

This afternoon in my back yard. A White Throated Sparrow, in our cedar hedge.
K-3 and DA 55-300 with the 1.4 TC. Clikc on the image to see exif.
Faint details straight off the camera, cleaned up with Topaz Super Focus V2 (and sent to Topaz to help them refine Super Focus. (They request them every now and then.)
2025-04-28-Sparrow in Cedars by Norm Head, on Flickr

And continuing the theme of birds is cedars…. from 2023- in my friend Lisa’s back yard.
2023-06-11_Cardinal-1 by Norm Head, on Flickr

 

[21limited]

Just Arrived
SItting out on the deck today, I heard the hum of my first hummer back from the south. We had three chicks here last year, a male and two females. I suspect this is the male from last year. He went straight to his favourite feeder, where he always goes, we have three out there. We heard there were flocks of them both south and north of us, so we were waiting. We are a little higher and little cooler than the area around us. ( We are up on the Algoqnuin dome., a geological feature 60 Km wide and 800 feet higher than the surrounding land.)

It’s my first this year so I spent considerable time getting the best of the raw.
2025-05-02--FIrst hummer by Norm Head, on Flickr

Cllck on the image to see the exif.

 

[zombiesniper]

Wood duck fly bye.

Wood Duck by Trevor Baldwin, on Flickr

 

[misterjones]

An orange beaked home invader and window pecking miscreant.

Seriously, this critter has been attacking all of the windows on my house for the last week or so.

 

[Philmar]

Trying to keep warm on Lake Ontario - Kew Beach, Toronto by Phil Marion (238 million views), on Flickr