Canon 500mm f/4 IS lens and a Canon EOS-1D Mark II N mounted on a tripod. ISO 400. Manual mode: 1/250 sec. at f/29. Six flash set-up.
Guango Lodge, Ecuador.
Turning the open port of the feeder towards the back of your set-up makes it more likely that the birds will give you good head angles. As they wait their turn at the open feeder port, they will sometimes hover facing forward. When a bird hovers, firing a burst of shots will increase your chances of getting a full wing spread pose and the gorget will be well lit showing the iridescense.
You clearly got this down to a fine art Linda:-) Hopefully one day I will be able to photograph hummingbirds with you so that I can learn from the master!
Excellent Linda !!! Awesome flight pose, lighting and detail. Just doesn't get better than this < smile > I too would love the opportunity of photographing these beuties with you Linda.
Linda, I have so much enjoyed your series of hummingbird images, each one equally beautiful. Color, sharpness, and poses are a testimony to your expertise. Thanks for sharing and teaching.
Attractive backgrounds are the most difficult part of hummingbird photography.! When i first began i used single color backgrounds, and I still do occasionally use them in natural colors of green, grey, and light blue. But my favorite way to get nice backgrounds it to photograph them myself. I find a patch of flowers and photograph them by turning off autofocus and turning the focusing ring until the image is very blurred. Soft swathes of color is the goal here. I further blur the image in Photoshop. I then have the image printed at a local printing company, and have it mounted on foamboard. Backgrounds made this way have subtle colorations, and by turning one upside down, the colorations are different and add variety to the images. Some people are able to paint their own backgrounds, but I am not very good at this. If you try to paint your own backgrounds, nmake sure to use matte paint (rather than glossy or semi-glossy paint) because a shiny surface on the background will reflect light from the background flashes and will result in white spots appearing in the images.
Chestnut-breasted Coronet
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