Couple of Hummers

[SCraig]

A couple of Hummingbird shots from this morning:

Whoa!! Hit the brakes! Where did that monster come from???

 

[JacaRanda]

LOL,

That is a cool caption and I really like the wing position on it. #1 super crispy clean.

 

[BillM]

That first one is outstanding !!!!

 

[SCraig]

LOL,

That is a cool caption and I really like the wing position on it. #1 super crispy clean.

That first one is outstanding !!!!

Thanks guys, much appreciated. I love to watch these little critters, they are so amazingly agile. They can flick from one side of the feeder to the other in the blink of an eye. I usually use a speedlight when shooting them and while it doesn't really frighten them it does tend to make them twitch sideways each time it goes off.

Jacaranda, that bird really was annoyed by the wasp on the feeder. He buzzed around it for a minute or so before he finally decided to take a chance on it.

 

[robbins.photo]

Great set, that first one is definitely worth a print.

 

[baturn]

Excellent! Especially the 1st. I'm still trying for this type of shot, but the little blighters are determined to only show when I'm not set up. I have hundreds of OK shots, but not quite what I'm after. Thanks, I'm re-inspired.

 

[SCraig]

Great set, that first one is definitely worth a print.

Thanks, I appreciate that. I'm not much on printing these days though.

Excellent! Especially the 1st. I'm still trying for this type of shot, but the little blighters are determined to only show when I'm not set up. I have hundreds of OK shots, but not quite what I'm after. Thanks, I'm re-inspired.

Thanks, Brian. They can be tough to get a decent shot of, I have lots of them that are worthless.

The method I use is to set the camera on a tripod up close to the feeder and then trigger it with a wireless remote. They don't seem to be at all afraid of the camera or tripod and tend to ignore it. I use a speedlight, a minimum shutter speed of 1/1000 second and an aperture of about f/8. A couple of test shots will show the right exposure. I frame the shot wider than is necessary and manually focus on one edge of the feeder then sit back and wait for them to show up. They will nearly always pause a few inches away from the feeder before landing on it and that's the shot I wait for. The original shot of #1 had the bottom of the feeder in it, much like #2, but today's cameras have such high resolution it's easy to crop most of the shot and still have good resolution.

This area has feeders mounted around the deck and walkway of the visitor's center and trees behind so I pick a spot that will give me good contrast in the background. Yesterday morning it was overcast and dark so the background trees look almost black so the birds show up very well against it, especially when using a flash as opposed to ambient light.