Been shooting Hummingbirds again with 70-300mm G

Brooks P

I have a lot of Ruby Throated Hummingbirds (I think) around the house, but very seldom does the iridescent throat colors show up when I try to photograph them. For some reason yesterday was different.
These are hand held using my SunPak 383 set at one-half power. Hmmm, wonder if cutting the flash power had anything to do with the iridescent colors appearing? These were converted using PSE4, Shadows/Highlights, USM, and then cropped.
Nikon D50; Focal Length: 240mm; 1/400 sec - F/5.6; Lens: 70-300mm F/4-5.6 G; ISO 200

kgarrett11

Numbers 1 and 2 are great. Really sharp and the colors are briliant. Thanks for sharing.

raptorcaptor

Like the first two! You might want to white balance the background. It will make the colors in the hummers more crisp!

Brooks P

The background is actually very close to what you see. It was sort of a shrimp color at one time, but is now quite faded, but it is not white.

Brooks P

Took the third photo, only changed WB setting to Flash before opening it in PSE4. Then I used the white eyedropper in Levels on the background. Not real sure what I am doing here. But this was the result.

GraphyFotoz

Incredible work!
Wish I could capture these lil guys half as good!
Tricky to get good shots of them....sometimes they are tame and sometimes the are quite skidish.

David Taylor

Wow # 1 and 2 are fantastic. Not sure what happened to the 3rd. There's no catchlight in the eye and it looks a little cloudy which makes me suspicious that it may be injured, just a guess.

We had plenty of them around here a few weeks ago, and very few since then. I love my hummers.

Dick on Aruba

Very nice work Brooks. I like the 1st the most.

Thanks for sharing.

Dick.

Brooks P

David Taylor wrote:

Wow # 1 and 2 are fantastic. Not sure what happened to the 3rd. There's no catchlight in the eye and it looks a little cloudy which makes me suspicious that it may be injured, just a guess.

We had plenty of them around here a few weeks ago, and very few since then. I love my love hummers.

I thought the same thing when I first saw the picture on my monitor, but when I increase the image to about 200% what I see looks like a reflection of the sky with the clouds that were behind me, as well as the outline of a couple of trees across the street.

ballentphoto

Brooks P wrote:

I thought the same thing when I first saw the picture on my monitor, but when I increase the image to about 200% what I see looks like a reflection of the sky with the clouds that were behind me, as well as the outline of a couple of trees across the street.

Are you familiar with this thread from DPReview?

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1021&message=18956906

He takes some amazing images of those little guys, and you pics and setup reminds me of what Keith is doing.

Brooks P

ballentphoto wrote:

Are you familiar with this thread from DPReview?

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1021&message=18956906

He takes some amazing images of those little guys, and you pics and setup reminds me of what Keith is doing.

That thread is by Keith.

Keith and I have exchanged Emails, and I admire his work very much, but on my budget I realize I probably can't come close to what he is able to do. I have one old SunPak flash and a sub $150 70-300mm G lens. I'm hoping that next year I might be able to add a Nikon flash, which should help with the exposure, which I'm currently doing in full manual in trial and error mode, mostly error mode.

Harryb

Outstanding shots Brooks.

ballentphoto

Brooks P wrote:

That thread is by Keith.

Keith and I have exchanged Emails, and I admire his work very much, but on my budget I realize I probably can't come close to what he is able to do. I have one old SunPak flash and a sub $150 70-300mm G lens. I'm hoping that next year I might be able to add a Nikon flash, which should help with the exposure, which I'm currently doing in full manual in trial and error mode, mostly error mode.

Well you are doing a fantastic job so far My only critique would be that the background that you are using make it look like they may be in captivity with the white background, try to take the picture so that there is some sky and greenry in the background. The actual capturing the little guys is fantastic, just would prefer a more natural looking background . Keep up the great work.

Awais Yaqub

these are wonderful

Maestro

Very nice captures! Excellent. Did you place some sort of linen or backdrop behind the hummer?

Brooks P

That is the front of the house that you see behind the the birds. In some of my shots you can see the blue trim as in these two.





or this one where you can see some of the texture of the stucco

Brooks P

ballentphoto wrote:

Well you are doing a fantastic job so far My only critique would be that the background that you are using make it look like they may be in captivity with the white background, try to take the picture so that there is some sky and greenry in the background. The actual capturing the little guys is fantastic, just would prefer a more natural looking background . Keep up the great work.

Most of the time if they are not actually feeding they are sitting on the wires across the street. The only plant that I have that they regularly visit is a Palo Verde tree and is very hard to photograph them while they are in the tree. This is one I managed to capture just going in, but most of the time they are up in the top and either too high or too far into the tree.

Forehead

I'd have to get up pretty early in the morning--and get a much better camera, etc., than what I already have--to beat those shots!

Brooks P

Hi Steve-o
Cottonwood, AZ, that is some beautiful country. It's been a few years since I have been in that neck of the woods. I pretty much grew up around Phoenix, graduated from Scottsdale High, which is now long gone. My Dad loved to go on picnics and we went to places like Jerome, Camp Verde, Cottonwood, Sedona, Montezua's Castle, Castle Hot Springs. One of my dreams is to one day move back to Arizona.

DoctorIt

Brooks P wrote:

These are hand held using my SunPak 383 set at one-half power. Hmmm, wonder if cutting the flash power had anything to do with the iridescent colors appearing?

Hey Brooks - some great shots! I just wanted to throw up some info on that above question/comment. I guess I can't say for sure with all speedlights, but reducing the power also reduces the flash "time". Most high speed photography is actually done with the light set to 1/2 or even less power, as this makes the flash even "faster". So you get less light, but you freeze the action in even less time. Does that make sense?

For example, lots of high speed fluid work in our lab was done with Nikon speedlights. based on fluid movement, i was able to roughly calculate the effective exposure time caused by the flash. So at full power, it takes about 1/1000 of a second for the flash to fire, but at lower power, you get an effective exposure of nearly 1/8000 - very good for freezing action.

Don't know exactly how that effects colors, but thought I'd throw it out there.

Brooks P

DoctorIt wrote:

Hey Brooks - some great shots! I just wanted to throw up some info on that above question/comment. I guess I can't say for sure with all speedlights, but reducing the power also reduces the flash "time". Most high speed photography is actually done with the light set to 1/2 or even less power, as this makes the flash even "faster". So you get less light, but you freeze the action in even less time. Does that make sense?

For example, lots of high speed fluid work in our lab was done with Nikon speedlights. based on fluid movement, i was able to roughly calculate the effective exposure time caused by the flash. So at full power, it takes about 1/1000 of a second for the flash to fire, but at lower power, you get an effective exposure of nearly 1/8000 - very good for freezing action.

Don't know exactly how that effects colors, but thought I'd throw it out there.

I'm aware that reducing power is actually achieved by reducing the flash duration, resulting in an effective faster exposure. My thought was that maybe this faster exposure captured the feathers when they were oriented in such a way that they showed their iridescence. The slower flash might allow them sufficient time for them to orient in such a way as to not display the iridescence. Not sure, just speculating. Guess I'll play around with different power level and see what happens. Only problem is that at the lower levels the unit wants F/5.6 and my El-Cheapo lens supposedly isn't all that good at F/5.6, although the first came out pretty good at F/5.6.

Forehead

You know, "A goal is a DREAM with a deadline".:D

Brooks P wrote:

Cottonwood, AZ, that is some beautiful country. It's been a few years since I have been in that neck of the woods. I pretty much grew up around Phoenix, graduated from Scottsdale High, which is now long gone. My Dad loved to go on picnics and we went to places like Jerome, Camp Verde, Cottonwood, Sedona, Montezua's Castle, Castle Hot Springs. One of my dreams is to one day move back to Arizona.

DoctorIt

Brooks P wrote:

I'm aware that reducing power is actually achieved by reducing the flash duration, resulting in an effective faster exposure. My thought was that maybe this faster exposure captured the feathers when they were oriented in such a way that they showed their iridescence. The slower flash might allow them sufficient time for them to orient in such a way as to not display the iridescence. Not sure, just speculating. Guess I'll play around with different power level and see what happens. Only problem is that at the lower levels the unit wants F/5.6 and my El-Cheapo lens supposedly isn't all that good at F/5.6, although the first came out pretty good at F/5.6.

Duration! Man, my explanation was horrible, I was struggling for the right word!

Good speculations, anyway. One more comment: your el-cheapo lens is still a very good piece of Nikkor glass. I just picked one up for travel purposes. It also happens to be Thom Hogan's favorite for consumer grade Nikkor glass.

Brooks P

I new exactly what you meant, no Problem.

He has the "ED" version, I have the Plain-Jane "G" version. Still, I think for a lens that cost less than $150 it has produced some awesome results. Looking forward to some reviews on the new "VR version of this lens.

DoctorIt

Brooks P wrote:

Looking forward to some reviews on the new "VR version of this lens.

Me too.

(Sorry for the hijack, back to hummers)

Maestro

Brooks P wrote:

That is the front of the house that you see behind the the birds. In some of my shots you can see the blue trim as in these two.





or this one where you can see some of the texture of the stucco

Thanks. I was just wondering. These shots too are excellent!

stephiewilliams

Brooks - nice shots, great colors. You know I have this same lens and I have gotten a lot of flack...people saying from 200-300mm it is soft and not suitable for anything like wildlife but I think you are proof its the photographer not the gear. Great job!