Male, Purple-Throated Woodstar

[Melvin Grey]

Taken on a recent first trip to Ecuador. These tiny hummingbirds have a more predictable flight pattern than many other species and regularly come to feeders.

Camera Canon 1D Mk111 100-400mm lens @ 400mm Iso 640 Exp. Four Canon flashguns on manual 1/16th power, approx 1/20,000 at f22

[Ofer Levy]

Very nice flash work! Great detail too. Flower is a bit big for my taste but still a lovely image. Would crop a bit off the top and right.

[Nick Palmieri]

Very nice capture. I think the flowers gives some scale to the tiny bird. Great job!

[Lana Hays]

Melvin
I so like the colors with this one....and how the colors of the hummer match that of the flower. At first I thought the flower large.....but as I view this....I agree with Nick...it adds some scale to the image. Well done.

[Greg Basco]

Melvin, nice flash work on the bird, and the background looks good too. The flower is a bit big but what affects the picture a bit more for me is that there appears to be something strange about the DOF between flower and bird. Don't know what could be causing this but it occupies my eye and takes the focus away from the bird a bit. I can't tell if the bird was in front of or behind the flower. I'm guessing in front as the bird and front flower petals are tack sharp and the back petals fall off.

Congrats again on the nice flash work!
Cheers,
Greg

[Deborah Hanson]

Like the detail in the hummer. Complimenting colors are a plus.
I would love to figure out flash photography for hummingbirds. Although I don't know that much about it, it seems well done.
Agree with above comments that the flower seems too large for the image and bird - for me it overpowers the hummingbird. Also agree that DOF seems off as well (just curious, is this a composite?).

[Melvin Grey]

Sorry about the size of the flower, but that was how big they were - or how small the hummer was!
Greg, even at f22 the depth of field is very narrow, the bird was feeding on drops of sugar water applied with a syringe to the centre of the flower. Can't remember whether in this shot it was coming in or backing away but the far petals are out of the d.o.f.

[Arsdel Fluesmeier]

Very nice shot. Colors very good. I like the flower in there too.

[Nathan Nitzky]

Very nice! I like how the colors are so similar between the gorget and flower, and how even the shape of the petals seem to mimic the shape of the bird - looks like the bird fits right into the space between the petals and they curve to match the breast... perfect placement IMHO!

[Michael Stern]

Overall an excellent image...bird to flower scale fine with me as that was how it was!
Great colors!
Congrats.
Mike

[Hendri Venter]

Excellent image. Awesome colours and tack sharp detail. Well done Melvin.