Very fresh juvenile Rufous Hummingbird male

[Bruce Enns]

Hi, sorry, I can't resist posting more hummingbirds...these guys are all over the place in my yard right now, and since I have a regular day job, I don't have a lot of time to get further afield. Anyway, here is a juvenile male Rufous Hummingbird which I thought was very handsome in nice fresh feathers.

Canon 50D, Canon 500 L f/4 with 1.4 ex II, ISO 800, ISO 800, 1/100s, f/8, BLUBB on the open kitchen window sill

I would have liked just a bit more of a head turn...

Comments and critiques are greatly appreciated! Thanks for looking!

Cheers!
Bruce

[Harshad Barve]

So good to see them ,and so good to see them photographed beautifully
Harshad

[Don Anderson]

LOve the detail, but shows up a little too light on my monitor.
Also a little too tight on the bill side, could use a little more
room for looking into. Wish we had some varity in MN. all we
have are ruby throated hummers.

[Gyorgy Szimuly]

Please, don't stop posting Hummingbirds. This is the right place for it :D
I like this image. The perfect fresh plumage is very nice. Love the sweet bg as well.
I just find it oversharpened.

Szimi

[Kiran Poonacha]

Grand image this.. loved the details and colours on this one..

[Randy Stout]

Bruce:

He does look freshly minted! HA mentioned. Sharpening is right on edge for my taste.

I agree with Don, too bright for my taste. I did a quick darkening of the background, and feel that it does help significantly, makes the bird pop,separate nicely from the background.

By all means, keep them coming.

Randy

[Ilija Dukovski]

Hi, sorry, I can't resist posting more hummingbirds...

You've shown us a wonderful series of these beautiful gems.
I don't think we can ever have enough of them.
Please keep them coming, can't wait for your next post.

Cheers,

[Dave Leroy]

It looks like a slight head turn towrads you, so I think it is fine. Really nice details. Good to see the lack of noise with 50D at ISO800 c/w lots of details. Dave

[Glenda Simmons]

He looks a bit over sharpened and bright but at the same time it accentuates his new feather detail, which is interesting to see. Nice pose. I had the honor of releasing one of these little bad boys after is was banded in my yard one Christmas Eve. Quite thrilling, since we don't see many on the East coast.

[Stu Bowie]

You should charge some BPN members to come over and have a shoot in your garden. What great subjects to visit you. Amazing colours and detail, and if anything, I agree with Randy to darken the BG. Great capture Bruce.

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

You are right about the head angle.

But sharpness seems great to me as well as BG. There seems to be a halo on the crown.

[Bruce Enns]

Thank-you very much everyone...I did a fair bit of work on the BG in the computer, and it looked much better in a lighter tone...it could probably go back a few notches as indicated by some of you. The sharpening is also admittedly right on the cusp of being to much...both easy fixes.

I have since fixed the BG in the garden and will post the adult male Rufous shot today that has become the tiny dictator in the yard.

Cheers!
Bruce

[Jay Gould]

Bruce, why would you want to resist posting more hummingbirds? Your "very fresh" title caused me to conjure up some type of bird behavior! :confused: :o ;)

Ah, the English language - ain't communication a *****!

Now to the irresistible hummer - it (how do you know it is guy - colors?) is irresistible.

On my laptop monitor the far edge of the hummer appears softer than the front facing side. Is f/8 on your lens at that distance so shallow a DOF (perhaps only 2 - 3" of sharpness depth) or is it my monitor?

Are you wary of pushing the 50D beyond ISO 800 to have gained f/11 at the same SS?

Thanks for posting this little "it"!

[Bruce Enns]

Thanks Jay! Yes, the extensive rufous colour appears only on the males (especially on the back). As for the softer side away from the camera, it is probably due to two things...very shallow depth of field (I am pretty close to the MFD of the lens here), but also the extensive work on the background mentioned earlier combined with imperfect refine edge technique in PS. f/11 would have made my background troubles worse, but since I redid a lot of background, that may have been a non-issue.

Cheers!
Bruce

ps a mature male coming after my time limit expires later

[Jay Gould]

Thanks Jay! Yes, the extensive rufous colour appears only on the males (especially on the back). As for the softer side away from the camera, it is probably due to two things...very shallow depth of field (I am pretty close to the MFD of the lens here), but also the extensive work on the background mentioned earlier combined with imperfect refine edge technique in PS. f/11 would have made my background troubles worse, but since I redid a lot of background, that may have been a non-issue.

Cheers!
Bruce

ps a mature male coming after my time limit expires later

Bruce, you do not get away that easily!!

In my "infancy" ;), I suggested that f/11 might have made it better/sharper and you have said it would have made your BG troubles worse. Are you saying the bird would have been sharper and the background harder to work because it too would have been sharper? :confused: - what are you say? :D Jay

[Bruce Enns]

What I'm saying is that at the time that the image was shot, I thought f/8 was sufficient (and I still think it is for this bird which is all pretty much in the same plane), but I ended up having a difficult background repair. Then I went and repaired a great deal of the background, which means I could have shot at f/11 anyway. I'm pretty sure that the bit of a OOF border on the bird is a result of not being quite careful enough in the post-processing of the background.

Cheers!
Bruce