Ruby Throated Hummingbird

[Alex Becker]

Hi all,

I just spent two days in the Catskills getting some R&R and while I didn't intend to do much photography I brought my stuff just in case. The Air BNB we were at had some lovely flowers and some hummingbirds which I've never gotten a chance to photograph before. I didn't want to be too anti social so mostly stuck to grab shots while having some beers with chips and guac on the porch -- not a bad day! Here's one such shot from about ~6pm. In post, slight crop, raised shadows a bit, light NR on the bird and heavier NR on the BG, cloned out a couple distracting bits.

Camera: Nikon D500
Lens: 200-500mm f/5.6 at 500mm
Specs: 1/640 ISO 3600 f/5.6

Thanks for looking and commenting on prior posts!
Alex

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Alex, love the vibrance of the image and well timed too. I would suggest you loose the hint of flowers at the foot of the image by the tail, looks better I think. Get some more exposure back in the leaves, it helps and gives some more detail too.

Well done.

TFS
Steve

[Joseph Przybyla]

Hi Alex, beautiful little bird. As Steve said vibrant image with the colorful Lantana. At 6 pm up there it must be getting kind of dark this time of year so 1/640 and ISO 3600 makes sense. If you ever have an opportunity in brighter light 1/3200 freezes the wings with just a touch of motion blur, 1/5000 completely freezes the wings. Thank you for sharing.

[Glenn Pure]

A wonderful shot, especially getting the bird while it wasn't actually taking nectar at a flower - I imagine it was considerably more difficult? I actually like the wing blur in this shot too so your slow SS has been good. Agree with Steve that a bit more density in the leaves and probably flowers too would add to this shot. I also wondered if a tighter crop would work but suspect that losing the sharp flowers on the right would detract?

[Alex Becker]

Thanks all -- very much appreciated. I had fun photographing this guy and hope I get more chances in better light to experiment more with much higher SS. Glenn, it actually wasn't much more difficult as this one kept pausing between taking nectar. These flowers were in front of a window so I think he was sizing up his own reflection. I'll look at going a bit tighter as well. Thanks again all,