Backlit Bird Battle
Late in the day this perch is backlit by the setting sun. Of course, any kind of light is good for fightin' as far as these two young Rufous Hummingbirds are concerned. Seen here is a key battle move....to grab the bill of your opponent and give it a nice twist.
D700
500mm vr
1/1000 @ f/8
iso 1000
Last edited by Charlie VanTassel; 08-07-2009 at 12:51 PM.
Well, those are really feisty little birds. Love the shadow in the tail of the upper fighter. Good work !!
Beautiful lighting and very nicely caught action. That claw on the beak is outstanding. The tip of the upper bird's left wing looks a little odd. Is that just motion blur making the cut-off looking shape, or is the wing really like that?
Bill
Charlie,
Your position in relation to the hummers isn't ideal, but this is a very interesting image nonetheless! The highlights are a little hot, but I do like the backlighting effect on the wings. Thank you for sharing this.
I like the effect you were trying to achieve, but I find you went a little too light to make it the most effective. Dialing in some negative EC would have made it alot more dramatic and may have given you more details in the blown wing feathers. I also wish the tail of the top bird wasn't overlapping the lower one. One thing do find extremely impressive is the foot holding on to the bill...how cool is that!!
Last edited by Daniel Cadieux; 08-07-2009 at 01:49 PM.
The highlights are not a little hot, they are toasted, fried, and way over-exposed. As Daniel says, by dialing in a lot of minus EC would have had a chance at something really dramatic. I advise folks to master exposure theory as taught in ABP so that when you have a once in a lifetime chance with no time to check the histogram, you can save the day. With Nikon this would be at least -3....
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awesome action , nice position , agreed with Arthur & Daniel here
TFS
Thanks all! I have a lot of these birds here and this kind of thing goes on all day long, so I can work on this kind of photo some more. I'll take your advice and dial in the EC next time.
Charlie a different approach, hope you get all settings right for when it happens again
Hi Charlie, I wish you the best in capturing the images that you want. I do believe, however, that you missed my main point. Only by understanding Exposure Theory (yes, that requires a significant amount of study and hard work), can anyone be ready and confident when those once in a lifetime moments unfold right in front of you.Originally Posted by Charlie VanTassel
Respectfully.
BIRDS AS ART Blog: great info and lessons, lots of images with our legendary BAA educational Captions; we will not sell you junk. 30+ years of long lens experience/e-mail with gear questions.
BIRDS AS ART Online Store: we will not sell you junk. 35 years of long lens experience. Please e-mail with gear questions.
Check out the new SONY e-Guide and videos that I did with Patrick Sparkman here. Ten percent discount for BPN members,
E-mail me at samandmayasgrandpa@att.net.
Hi Artie, Thanks for coming back to this one. I understand. This photo was a bit of a challenge for me. I've been watching this backlit action for a long time now (years, really) wondering if it even was worth getting my camera out for it. Past attempts were marginal, and I was encouraged when I was able to get this photo. I guess that my real intent was to show the possibility that exists and hope that the more learned folks here could point out ways to improve. In that respect the photo was a success. Now I get to do the rest.
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