Hummingbirds are hard… to photograph, that is!
About a month ago, we set out some hummingbird feeders. (Thanks, Kevin!)
Yesterday afternoon, I succumbed to the urge to try and photograph the critters. I set up the tripod, mounted the 50-500 mm lens on the camera, mated the two and waited… and waited… and waited!
Waiting is the first difficulty… humming birds show up in the vicinity of the feeder sporadically and then don’t hang around for very long.
Photographically, I was looking to avoid the usual cliches… you know, “the bird on a feeder”. See the first photo for an example… I can shoot cliches with the best of them! Thus, I initially set up the camera for a “loose” framing so that I could easily crop out any bit of feeder in the frame; see the second and third photos.
I also noted that the females especially would often perch in the nearby pine trees after visiting feeders. They were usually perched too high to get a good photo… a photo of a bird belly is not particularly interesting; the eye-to-eye perspective makes for much stronger photos. However, every once in a while one would land on the lowest branch and tempt me into taking a frame.
Finally, I decided that the most interesting photos would be those of these critters maneuvering around the area and challenging one another; see the last two frames. This is a low probability shot… one needs to frame the bird, acquire focus and hit the shutter all in what seems like milliseconds… these birds hover but are never really still!
What did I learn spending four hours in the back yard? Humming birds are hard!
These photos are OK… just OK. They are sharp enough for display as small images but they are fairly drastic crops (roughly half a frame) of frames taken at ISO 800 or 1600. I would not try to make even modest sized prints from them.
My conclusion… more practice is needed! This of course, is a key to good photography and life in general, now that I think about it!
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During the long interludes between the appearances of the hummingbirds, I entertained myself by putting the 70-300 mm lens and the 32 mm extension tube on one of my old D70 bodies and shooting the odes which appeared nearby.
I missed only one or two visits of the hummingbirds while engaged with the odes. You can hear the hummingbirds as they approach and it was usually easy enough to get back behind the tripod.
Towards the end of the afternoon, my attention (to hummingbirds) began wane and I began to wander further from the tripod. It was then I noticed the black-eyed susans.
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All in all, ’twas an enjoyable fours hours spent!