Ruby-throated Hummingbird

[Norm Dulak]

Nikon D300 w/Nikkor 80-400mm VR lens @ 400mm, tripod mounted
ISO equivalent 640, MM -0.67
1/320 sec @ f/22
SB-800 hot-shoe mounted speedlight, augmented with three SB-26 slave strobes
Usual PS CS5 post-processing adjustments, w/cloning to remove flower mounting elements and excess catchlights in the eye

I titled a recent prior posting in this forum "What Is Beauty?," and I tried to provide an answer to that question in the posting. But perhaps an even better answer is provided by this image of a female ruby-throated hummingbird, which demonstrates again that you often don't need to venture beyond your own back yard to find wonderful things to photograph.

Your thoughts of the image will be greatly appreciated!

Norm

[Keith Carver]

This is a beautiful image, Norm, tack sharp and perfect EXP. I would wish for a BG that wasn't quite so atonal, but I know others that like this look so maybe it's just me. And the catchlight seems a bit strong. But these are minor nits and I would be delighted to have this one in my files. Congrats!

[Graeme Sheppard]

It's a beautiful composition and very nicely captured. I think Keith has a good point about the background - I've had photos that have an artificial-looking separation between the foreground and the background despite not doing anything whatsoever in post-processing. This image has that kind of feeling too, of a studio set-up photo, particularly for the flowers.
I'd love to have this, too!

[Bill Holsten]

Beautiful image. Incredibly sharp for the low resolution allowed for posting. I can only imagine what it looks like at full resolution.

[Morkel Erasmus]

great 3D feel here Norm...no hummingbirds where I live so I have to enjoy all these postings on BPN :)
agree on the BG looking "dropped in" - maybe something you did in processing? excessive noise reduction that spilled over the edges of the bird?

[Norm Dulak]

I didn't realize the background would be such a problem! It's simply light green fabric affixed to a foam board. My view is that where a natural, blurred multicolor background is not available, it's best to use an innocuous background, so that the viewer's focus can be on the bird and the flower, without distraction.:)

One further thought. I have many hummingbird images in which the bird is not contacting a flower. During the coming winter, I plan to extract some of these hummers in various positions with PS CS3, place them on transparent layers above a Longwood Gardens flower garden background layer, and position and resize them using PS free transform, to make what I hope will be interesting montages.

Norm

[Graeme Sheppard]

I didn't realize the background would be such a problem! It's simply light green fabric affixed to a foam board.

Norm

That explains it nicely!
I think I'd probably agree with you, you just end up with a studio feel to it, which is fine.

However, an innovative approach was in Birds As Art Notes/April 23, 2010, using blown up, out of focus photos to create a background.

[Norm Dulak]

Thanks to everyone for your comments!

But I am somewhat disappointed in that while I think this hummingbird image is worthy of discussion, not a single moderator of this forum has offered his or her thoughts. That's a pity, since in the past I've learned a lot from moderators' input due to their great expertise.

Norm

[Hendri Venter]

What a beauty!!! Outstanding image quality and lovely colours. Congrats on a mighty fine image Norm.

[Randy Stout]

Norm:

Very nicely done with a lens not known for speedy focus ( I know, I have one too!)
Very sharp, excellent exposure. Did you prefocus on this flower and wait for the bird to come in?
Background is a matter of taste. It does show the bird very well, not distracting, but a bit studio like as mentioned. There is no perfect balance here.

From a comp. standpoint, I might consider cropping down a bit from the top, perhaps 30-40% of the free space there.

Hope to see more!

Cheers

Randy

[Norm Dulak]

Norm:

Very nicely done with a lens not known for speedy focus ( I know, I have one too!)
Very sharp, excellent exposure. Did you prefocus on this flower and wait for the bird to come in?
Background is a matter of taste. It does show the bird very well, not distracting, but a bit studio like as mentioned. There is no perfect balance here.

From a comp. standpoint, I might consider cropping down a bit from the top, perhaps 30-40% of the free space there.

Hope to see more!

Cheers

Randy

Randy:

Thanks for the comments!

With regard to focusing, I don't even try autofocus with that lens where these speed demons are concerned.:) So yes, I went manual, focused on the flower, stopped down to f/22 for good DOF, and fired away when my little friend approached the flower in plane.

Norm