Difficult visitor...

[ied]

Difficult to capture that is. I'm attempting to capture it in flight
coming towards me. Unfortunately the feeder will always be in the way.
This is the best one from this attempt. I will try again.
I can't explain the two shiny 'beads' at it's throat.
ss 800, f/8, iso 400, 105mm

comments & critiques welcome.
Irene

[]http://i62.tinypic.com[/20zti6t.jpg[/IMG]

[Shadowman]

You need a new setup, a remote controlled camera mounted on the feeder.

[Nicks Pics]

I think that's a fine photo of a flying hummingbird. I don't think it's a problem that the wings are blurred, that shows motion. It might have been nice if the head and body turned out a little sharper, but I wouldn't know what to do but to use a faster shutter speed of course, or avoid camera shake.

I think the colors in the feathers on hummingbirds' throats depend on what angle they are at to the light source, they are not always bright, since they use light to glow up in colors. So in your picture, there must be only a few feathers that are in the right angle to be catching the light.

[chauncey]

Tripod, remote shutter, pre-focused on one feeding hole (plug the rest of them)...grab a cuppa and wait, for they will come. Increase that SS to about 1500, try to arrange things with the sun behind the camera.

[ied]

Thanks John, not sure if I want to go to that extent but will persevere.

Irene

[ied]

Thanks Nick, I will try different settings next time.

Irene

[ied]

Thanks for the tips Chauncy.

Irene

[Mark von Kanel]

well i think your getting there, keep up the good work!

what camera do you use?

[bnnrcn]

Hi Irene I agree with Mark, keep up the good work. IMO the colors look a bit too saturated.

[Kaye Leggett]

Whilst I agree with you that the bird feeder is a distraction, the composition of the bird, the movement you've caught and the intense, focussed expression on the bird means I think you need something in the composition to give it the context. Perhaps try changing the bird feeder to a less obtrusive one ??

[IzzieK]

Irene, I am with William regarding the SS...my minimum on a hummingbird is 1/1000. That green shine on the neck is most attractive in that light.

[ied]

Thanks Mark,
I have a Canon 5D3. Lots to learn.

[Loose Canon]

Hi Irene,

A while back a gentleman on here (Steve S) posted a little how-to on how he shoots hummingbirds. He has some outstanding shots of these little guys. Some of the best I have seen. You can find his “How-I-Did-It” here if you are interested and it's great stuff.

One summer I had a chance at these guys myself. Here is one of the results and I mentioned a little about my own approach to shooting these guys. Our approaches were similar in that both of us preferred to use some speedlights for the job.

While they are a lot like shooting mosquitos at 100 feet in the dark, they are a blast. They do not, however, take direction worth a darn!

You might find it advantageous to up your shutter a little. I liked somewhere in the hood of 1/1600. This to lessen the wing motion a little more and give them some more definition but hopefully still giving some motion blur. But you’ll find a suitable speed to give you the combination of sharpness/blur you like. For me I was trying for the body/eyes sharp and let the wings blur as they may.

I don’t know what software you are using but I was able to successfully and quickly remove the feeder in your shot using Photoshop. Be happy to post it if you want to see it.

That summer I did several sessions with them at 6-8 hrs. a session. I shot hundreds of shots and got but a handful of shots I liked enough to keep.

It was well worth it Irene! Persistence is the key with these guys!

[ied]

Terry, Thank you so much for the most informative info as well as Steve's excellent tutorial. I'm so glad I posted what I knew was a "less than perfect" image and gained a wealth of info.

Please do post the the image 'sans bird feeder'.
Irene

I don’t know what software you are using but I was able to successfully and quickly remove the feeder in your shot using Photoshop. Be happy to post it if you want to see it.

[Wavelength]

You got the bird with excellent clarity; pray next time you get the cute thing in isolation

[ied]

You got the bird with excellent clarity; pray next time you get the cute thing in isolation

Thank you. Yes I'm looking forward to the next overcast day and will try a different approach.

Irene

[Loose Canon]

It was a down and dirty quickie (my favorite kind! ) Irene and would be much better working from the RAW file. I'm seeing some artifacts happening.

To lose the feeder in Photoshop I (somewhat loosely) selected it using the lasso tool (on a duplicate layer) and use the content aware fill, then touched it up with the clone stamp tool. I could (should) have spent a bit more time with it and touched it up a bit better but you can probably get an idea of what it would look like sans feeder!

Worked pretty well and pretty quick.

While I had it in the editing bay I dropped the saturation a bit on the background and a tad on the bird, dodged the highlight on the bird’s eye and gave it a bit of a vignette.

[ied]

Thank you so much Terry. that is awesome. I really appreciate you explaining what & how you did this.
I will certainly give that a try on other images that are in dire need of * doctoring*.

Irene

[Loose Canon]

This was just a quickie Irene.

If you go this way you want to watch out for repeating patterns. In my version they are there. These are a dead give-away and have to be avoided. But are, at least in this case, easily retouched.

I just didn’t give it the TLC this shot deserves.

[ied]

Thanks again Terry. You have been most helpful. I have photoshop elements, so will give it a try.
Irene