Hummer Portrait

[Edward Arthur]

Sometimes I like wing blur on my hummers, sometimes not. In this case I do.

This is a black-chinned female hummingbird shot in New Mexico earlier this summer. There are three varieties of hummers around these parts, but black-chinned are most common. Rufous are next.

What's amazing is that I set up the camera and tripod less than three feet away from a feeder. I pre-focused the 35/70 at 70mm and worked the focus and camera on a ball head while they flew around and several folks gathered around me talking, laughing and in awe that these fabulous birds came so close to us and they couldn't care less about our presence. These little birds are bold!



Canon 6D
Zeiss 35-70mm @70mm
f/5.6 1/250 ISO 1000
Cheap wobbly tripod and sticky ball head, manual focus
Basic Lightroom adjustments, mandatory crop, maybe PS sharpening, don't remember.

Comments appreciated. :)

[Warren Spreng]

I agree the wing blur works here to frame the portrait, lovely detail. There is what I assume is a bit of blurred wing coming straight out of the back of the bird that I try to ignore but it keeps drawing my eye to it. Perhaps a bit of cloning to remove that?

[Diane Miller]

Hi Edward,

Good to see you back, too!

Nice! They are fun to shoot, aren't they? I'm not sure what the full frame looked like but I have the feeling of wanting to see a little more of the bird. Was the crop because of distracting BG elements? You could have fun placing a feeder where there is a clean BG -- even an artificial one. They are fairly easy to catch as they back off from the feeder, pause a minute and go right back to the flower.

I wonder if the color could be tweaked a little -- it has a brownish-tan cast, but I don't know the bird.

A good tripod and ballhead is worth its weight in gold! (And that's about what it will cost...)

[WillieHall]

Beautiful and I agree on the wing blur. I also think a little cloning on the back of the bird might help. That is one sharp lens!

[Edward Arthur]

Thanks for the great comments, everyone. Much appreciated!

I may have leaned too hard on temp slider, so in this RP I just set it back to "as shot" in LR. I also attempted to clone out that blurry wingtip on the back of the bird which I totally missed. Good catch!

Diane, I've got tons of full-body hummer shots. In this case I was going for a nice portrait for a change. In addition to the wobbly tripod, sticky ballhead and manual focus, I also had a rock in my shoe! No pain, no gain. :)

[Diane Miller]

Color looks better on the repost, but I don't know the bird. For a portrait, I like the first of these last two because there is a little more room for the bottom of the wing. Even though it's blurred, it's like a reflection of a waterbird in that it feels awkward to cut it in two unless it's very diffuse.

[Warren Spreng]

Colors are much better on the RP, good job on cloning out that blurred wing on the back, I like seeing the full wing as well.

[Don Lacy]

Wonderful detail on the hummer, the color is much better on the repost and like Diane i prefer the first repost image