birds on a wire #58

[garygruber]

This was the actual atmospheric color as Hurricane Hilary was bearing down us (Coachella Valley -- Palm Springs area) a couple of days ago. My fourth hurricane, fourth flood. About an hour before all hell broke loose.

 

[Jeff15]

A very grainy shot....

 

[greybeard]

I kinda like all the grain. how was this shot?

 

[garygruber]

I kinda like all the grain. how was this shot?

My hummingbird photos really push the camera to its limit. I have 4 hummingbirds in my backyard that come out every day at 6:15 pm as the light is waning. Hummingbirds in flight require at least 1/2000 to stop motion without blurring. I do not put food out to lure the birds, so I have to be ready when they appear. Usually I must use a very high ISO (at least ~15000) to get at least F/22 on my 80-400 or 200-500. Regardless of the lens I am only using at the max 5-6% of the image area.

When you stack all of those factors together, the image does break down somewhat, but the gallery that represents me (CODA Gallery, Palm Desert, Ca.) loves them.

I don't intentionally make them grainy, it's just the result of all the 'push' factors conspiring against the image. You must use a zoom for these images, tracking the moving bird at minimum focal length and frantically twisting to max when they alight on something. It's nerve wracking, but when I get a good one, very worthwhile.

The images then go from lightroom to photoshop to Topaz Sharpen AI to Topaz DeNoise AI, back to lightroom and then back to Photoshop for final editing. Then they are printed on a Canon PRO 1000 for exhibition.