When left with Lemons....

... Make lemonade. Or at least try.

This was taken back in September on one of my first trips to the lake with my then new 30D and a rented 100-400 trying to get egret or heron shots. I'm sitting in a little clump of trees on the shore line trying to be as unobtrusive as I can make myself. Still a little blurry eyed and trying to finish my coffee I hear something buzzing around. My eyes finally catch up to the source of the hummmmm and I get all excited. This little hummer is flying in and out of minimum focus distance, there's no light because it's still 6:30 in the morning, but I'm following him around like there's no tomorrow. I got several "Shots" if you want to call them that... Of course everything was way underexposed so I tried to make something out of nothing here.

Curious if you all think I made it all the way to lemonade or not.

Steve

Close to lemonade I can taste it !!! Great idea on going B&W Would clean up the flower a bit Should be easy The only thing I would have liked is for the wings to be sharp I find silhouettes need sharp edges to work best !!!

Good thinking I like it a lot !!!

Thanks Alfred.... I always appreciate your feedback. Understood about the sharpness and silhouettes. To be honest and not that I know any more about what I'm doing now, but I REALLY didn't have a clue when this was taken. Shot at ISO 200 & 1/500 there was no way I was going to stop those hummingbird wings.

They say the only bad experience is one you don't learn anything from!

Thanks again!

Steve

Hey Steve, this is really an interesting image and something that I thinks works well given the conditions! It's a beautiful silhouette and the blurred wings don't really bother me. Great way to work this situation to come out with a unique image!

Interesting interpretation. Given that it is a hummer, I think we can forgive the blur on the wing Alfred. :) Other parts of the silhouette are very sharp.

Interesting effect. I have an alternate version, using Nik Color Effex 3.0 Dual color filter twice.
Bo better, no worse, just another image :)

Judd, Robert, Fabs.... Thank you all for your comments! Fabs... I like your rendition too... Adds a very nice touch.

Steve

Very nice Steve... Like the composition:)

I'll take it as is. The silhouette is beautifully composed. Alfred's point on cleaning up the flower is good – if you're included to make such changes. I think the wing blur, if anything, says it's a hummingbird. Very effective.