Hummingbird at the Sip n Drip

[zulu42]

Thank you for looking

View attachment 176588

 

[RVT1K]

WOW!!

 

[danbob6]

Tremendous shot!

 

[edsland]

Cool.....

 

[K9Kirk]

Very cool shot and nice capture!

 

[tirediron]

Excellent.

 

[Jeff G]

Tired Iron beat me to it.....Excellent shot!

 

[JoeW]

Love it!

 

[Derrel]

What exactly are we seeing here? Looks like a "slow" shutter speed in ambient lighting, something in the 1/400-1/800 range.

 

[zulu42]

WOW!!

Thanks!

Tremendous shot!

Thank you kindly

Cool.....

Very cool shot and nice capture!

Thank you K9

Excellent.

Appreciate that tirediron

Tired Iron beat me to it.....Excellent shot!

Thank you Jeff

Love it!

Thank you!

 

[zulu42]

What exactly are we seeing here? Looks like a "slow" shutter speed in ambient lighting, something in the 1/400-1/800 range.

@Derrel -Bingo.

D800 with Nikon 105mm f/2.8 ISO400 1/640 f/9 ambient afternoon dappled sunlight

Shutter speed waaay slow for typical hummingbird shooting but I was trying different things and I do like wing blur

About the shot:
I had some equipment (operator?) frustration with focus and remote trigger.
My mission was to capture the hummingbird at the spring with this lens as close as I could get. Tripod mounted about 3 feet from subject.
I have a cheap Petapixel remote that is supposedly capable of some neat stuff but it acts weird and I don't get along with the menus.
It was acting as though it was constantly in half button press and the camera was constantly searching focus.
I tried some manual zone focus and AF-S.

Luckily the birds were cooperative and patiently waited while I adjusted, then kept coming back.

I deleted probably 100 pictures with the birds in the frame but the camera just couldn't grab focus. Really frustrating because they would have been some beautiful shots.

This was the best shot, really the only one in decent focus and the dripping water was just a lucky moment. Still, 1/640 was slow and there was motion blur on just about everything but the beak (and is that a hummingbird tongue?!?)

I was a bit heavy handed with the sharpening in post.

 

[zulu42]

I might re-visit the crop and the post processing.
Suggestions always welcome.

Here it is SOOC: