Hummer Day

[Arthur Morris]

On my Galapagos trips, some of the group spends our catch-up day with me at Tandayapa doing hummers. This year we concentrated on creating flash blurs as the birds were not very much into perching :)

This Andean Emerald image was created with the Canon 800mm f/5.6L IS lens and the EOS-1D MIV. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +2/3 stop: 1/60 sec. at f/5.6. Fill flash with Better Beamer at -1 stop.

Don't be shy; all comments welcome.

[Joel Eade]

Artie,

Mission accomplished with regard to the blurred wings , the colors are beautiful and background is nice too....on my monitor the head and the eye look as though they could be sharper.

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks Joel. The head and eye look fine from here :)

[Aidan Briggs]

The head and eye seem tack sharp to me. A perfect flash blur of a hummer. Nice BG and Exposure. Light must have been really low!!

[Arthur Morris]

Good observation on the low light young man :) It was dark just before the rain.

[Harshad Barve]

Love the pose and wing blur here
TFS

[john jackson]

Arthur


Have you re-worked the eye? It looks flat black from here with a tiny white speck, a bit unreal. Otherwise I like the image very much and prefer this style to the studio-like multiflash setups.

[Paul Randall]

I prefer the wing blurred look as well. Iridescence is captured perfectly and I think the tiny catchlight is enough to liven up the near blackness of the eye. The BG seems a little lumpy/cloudy (best terms I could come up with, sorry:p) so looks like you may have been limited in terms of chosen BG. Having said that, it does compliment the feel of the blurred wings. Did you consider composing with the eye further from the centre of the frame?

[RAM MALLYA]

Lovely action captured here Artie like the feel of the wings here .

[Arthur Morris]

Arthur, Have you re-worked the eye? It looks flat black from here with a tiny white speck, a bit unreal. Otherwise I like the image very much and prefer this style to the studio-like multiflash setups.

Way to go John. You got me! This should be much better. (I went back to the ORIG and grabbed the eye.)

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks all for your comments. I like this one and I have lots of hummers created at multi-flash set-ups that I love too :0 As for the eye in the center, that never bothers me at all; I do not even consider it as a factor in any composition. The bird here is pleasingly (for me) placed nicely back in the frame :) And yes, the BKGR is a bit lumpy but the colors match the bird nicely.

[john jackson]

Way to go John. You got me! This should be much better. (I went back to the ORIG and grabbed the eye.)

That looks much better, more 3D. I would take out the pin-prick flash reflection, too.