Ruby-throted hummingbird take in my yard. I processed it in LR4 - tonal, exposure, with a little sharpening and noise removal. I used PS to clone out the small piece of the feeder left after cropping
Nice one these are challenging birds to photograph correctly. I am running low on power (cord is at home) will continue this later tonight or tomorrow. What was the flash settings (e.g., ETTL -2) and how large was the crop - talk soon.
I took this one at about 750pm on 8/7/2012 sitting about 10 feet from the feeder. I had the flash angled up at abot 45 degrees, but I don't remember if I changed the flash setting or not. I had just got the flash shorlty before this, so I was experimenting somewhat on using it with the hummingbirds. I just looked at the Exif again and noticed I had -2/3EV set, missed that when I posted the image. I cropped a lttle off the right side, top and botton for framing and a little more from the left side to remove most of the feeder leaving a little in the bottom left corner that I cloned out in PS. So I would guess that the final image is abuot 80-85% of the original.
Thank you as you will learn it is the flash that actually helps freeze action with extreme motion like the hummers. It pulses and that with the proper shutter speeds can create a powerful picture. On balance, I think you did well it might be more compelling with the subject parallel to the lens - moreover adjust the head angle. Thank you for the muted background and removing the feeder - this forces the eye on the subject. Simple is better with such a fantastic bird and removing distracting elements really helps.
There is plenty of information on photographing hummers (multiple flash setup and controlled background drops) just google the topic and the pages roll so no need for me to go deeper. In closing always try for a unique composition something to make us connect with the picture. This is good but the subject is looking away from the lens and in the middle of the frame. There are opportunities with composition to strengthen the shot - on balance nice one - keep em coming.
Last edited by Jeff Cashdollar; 10-19-2012 at 04:46 PM.
The image looks soft overall, everywhere. To any one else also??
Maybe this the best the Sigma lens can do at max focal length? And wide open at f6.3?
Sure would try it at f8 or less.
Tom
It looks a bit soft, and most likely, f/8 would have helped with that. I would play around with levels/curves for some shadow adjustment to see if there could be some detail recovery in the blacks. I'm not very good at flash photography (prefer natural light whenever possible), so can't give you much advice in that regard. I do know these little dive bombers take a LOT of practice to get a few worth keeping!
Colin, Interesting capture and nice colors/ saturation. I concur with what Jeff observed and suggests-small birds up close, especially in flight are a challenge that will test your perserverance. Tom, I think the overall softness has more to do with motion blur, AF accuracy and the extremely limited DoF (1/2 inch or less?)when using a tele for this purpose. Your suggestion of stopping down will help to a degree. Personal experience when using my 300F4 for small birds at W/O or close to it- many, many blurred images and missed focus. When focus did hit it wasn't always where it was preferred or the DoF was so shallow that the eye would be sharp but the beak and nape of the neck were blurred, not to mention the rest of the bird.
Tom/Jennean - Thanks for the comments, and while I agree somwhat with the softness assessment, I think that there may be a little motion blur as well. I don't disagree that shooting at f/8 would probably help. I have a tendancy to shoot the Sigma wide open, especially in less than optimal light, something I need to work on. I decided to use flash on this one, partially because I was have problems really stopping motion and felt that the flash would help in doing that. Whe I look at the full size image, I can see that the eye and head are much chsrper and there is some motion blur on the wings, etc, but even so, stopping down to f/8 should be better.
Ruby-throated Hummingbird
