First Time Try at Hummers

OldGuy · June 27, 2011

I tried to capture Humming Birds in my backyard, experimenting with manual/zone focus and a single camera mounted SB 800 and my 70-200 2.8. I set the camera approximately 5' from the feeder and fired remotely using 2 PW's from about 20 ft. They sure are fast buggers!:huh

Please give feed-back.

1.

2.

3. Peek-A-Boo.:wink

4. Please ID this guy - He showed up one day last week to take a bath and hasn't been back.:dunno

Thanks,

CraigK · June 28, 2011

OldGuy wrote: »

4. Please ID this guy - He showed up one day last week to take a bath and hasn't been back.

Adult male rose-breasted grosbeak

...and yes, those hummers are fast.

OldGuy · June 28, 2011

CraigK wrote: »

Adult male rose-breasted grosbeak

...and yes, those hummers are fast.

Thanks Craig.

jwear · June 28, 2011

you may want to do a little modifying to your watermark it would make the ID a little easier

Don Kondra · June 28, 2011

Hi John,

I tried the manual focus/remote shutter release for a while and finally gave it up because of the low keeper rate. Even with a decent dof you need to catch the bird in that zone.

What I found works better is sitting/standing quietly about ten feet from the feeder. Prefocus on the feeder and watch carefully.

When the birds move in to sip they will move back and hover for a fraction of a second and then move back in. Catch them with auto focus/single point in the hover.

Even if the feeder is in the frame it can easily be cloned out.

Of course if you have flowers in the yard and can catch them in a natural setting it's even better

BTW, with all due respect, lose the watermark or reduce its' size.

It's a huge distraction.

Personally I don't care for a black background and if you are going to use flash you may want to consider upping your game and using two or even three heads off camera.

Without flash I prefer the wing motion/blur at shutter speeds above 1/800 if you do catch them in the hover. I've shot at 1/4000 with the birds coming to the feeder and still had wing blur. Course the amount of blur is a personal preference

Cheers, Don

jwear · June 28, 2011

very good advice

OldGuy · June 29, 2011

jwear wrote: »

you may want to do a little modifying to your watermark it would make the ID a little easier

Don Kondra wrote: »

Hi John,

I tried the manual focus/remote shutter release for a while and finally gave it up because of the low keeper rate. Even with a decent dof you need to catch the bird in that zone.

What I found works better is sitting/standing quietly about ten feet from the feeder. Prefocus on the feeder and watch carefully.

When the birds move in to sip they will move back and hover for a fraction of a second and then move back in. Catch them with auto focus/single point in the hover.

Even if the feeder is in the frame it can easily be cloned out.

Of course if you have flowers in the yard and can catch them in a natural setting it's even better

BTW, with all due respect, lose the watermark or reduce its' size.

It's a huge distraction.

Personally I don't care for a black background and if you are going to use flash you may want to consider upping your game and using two or even three heads off camera.

Without flash I prefer the wing motion/blur at shutter speeds above 1/800 if you do catch them in the hover. I've shot at 1/4000 with the birds coming to the feeder and still had wing blur. Course the amount of blur is a personal preference

Cheers, Don

jwear wrote: »

very good advice

Thanks for the advice guys.

I will put it to good use. As far as the watermark, I have had a couple of instances of piracy over on the sports forums I am a member of. The mark was smaller and at the bottom of the images, however, the scumbags cloned it out. I am working on this issue.:bluduh

Regards,

First Time Try at Hummers

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