Allen's Hummingbird Male

[John Guastella]

Taken at the Upper Newport Bay Ecological Reserve in Newport Beach, CA.

There are hummingbirds galore in Southern California during January and February. The Allen's Hummingbirds seem particularly plentiful at this time of year, especially in the wooded areas around the Upper Newport Bay, where the males constantly battle over territory. I took this photo in a canyon where there are a lot of low perches for these little birds, which allows me to get eye level images.

I'm a hummingbird fanatic and my hard drive is filled with HB images, so I will be posting quite a few in the next few weeks. Hope nobody gets sick of them!

Canon 7D. Canon 500mm f/4 lens & 1.4X Extender (700mm). Manual, f/11 at 1/800sec. ISO 800. Tripod.

Standard PP except for the sky, which I color-adjusted to get it closer to what I remembered it to be that morning.

Thanks for looking and any C&C,

John

[Randy Stout]

John:
Sharp, wel exposed,good DOF, nice colors,appropriate sized perch

Look forward to more hummers!

Cheers

Randy

[Alan Murphy]

Love the detail and head angle.

[Chris Korman]

Great copper colors and detail in this bird. Did you have to crop any?

[Todd Frost]

Nice details and color. Exposure and HA look good as well. Well done.
TFS
Todd

[Pieter de Waal]

Wow what a nice little guy with great eye contact and pose. The feather detail is superb.

[John Guastella]

Thanks, everyone.


Did you have to crop any? Chris, this is minimally cropped; I was about 20 feet from the bird. I've learned that if I set up my tripod near one of these bird's main perches and shrink down behind the tripod - using it as a partial hide - the birds will repeatedly return to the perch and pretty much ignore me, so I get some really close shots.

John