D90 Nikon, 300mm L, f22, 1/200, ISO 250, 3 flashes, tripod
picture is cropped
I have been trying to take pictures of hummers, I take about 50 pictures to get one or two I think look good.
All comment welcome good or bad.
Where can I get a list of what these letters used in comment stand for like BG, BKGR, OTT, etc?
I been thinking about joining, but I think all of you are way above me. I am 77 years old and this is just a hobby for me.
Good effort and nice bird - lot of motion blur but keep trying and you will eliminate that. Your f stop f 22 is way off , you need to go the other way for these shots
ie 5.6 this will give you a huge increase in shutter speed (SS). 1/2000 + needed here; IMHO (IN MY HONEST OPINION)Did you have camera on auto?
Arthurs Digital Basics really is worth buying and will answer most if not all issues - I HAVE NO CONNECTION WITH BPN other than being a member
I have just processed the image quickly, removing the noise (NR) and sharpening a little - hope you dont mind (deleted it from my machine)
One problem here is the noise, particulary in the BKGR (background) there is a list of these abbreviations here somewhere; someone confirm as I cant remember where haha
plenty of information on how to prevent and deal with noise
No reason for age to be a concern, doesnt matter if your 7 or 77 everyone is made welcome.
Last edited by Richard Unsworth; 09-12-2011 at 01:18 PM.
I like Richard's repost. Besides eliminating the noise, he also corrected the white balance, making the background look much nicer.
Hummers are fast and can be hard to track. To eliminate the motion blur, I'd suggest either using the flash as the only source of light
(the short flash burst will freeze the action), or setting up a fast shutter speed to minimize the blur (1/1600s or faster should do).
I hope to be doing bird photography when I'm 77...that is great, keep it up!!
Most of us delete many more images than we keep so don't feel bad about that. That's what keeps us going, trying to get better and better evry time.
The biggest issue here is the noise on the hummimgbird. Perhaps due to a large crop, and/or bringing up the exposure in post processing. With three flashes I'd get one of those straight towards your subject. You got a nice pose, and a good clean background. Luis has also given you good advice, hope this helps a bit.
50 to one is pretty good ratio for keepers. I took hummingbird pictures for several days last month in West Texas and didn't really like any of them.
I disagree with Richard about shutter speed and aperture. When you are using multiple flashes you want to eliminate the ambient light as much as possible.
How were you flashes set? Low power? Manual? Three flashes is probably the minimum for lighting the bird, and you need something to light the background as well, otherwise it will be dark most likely.
With the amount of grain in your original post, I assume that is was cropped pretty small.
I would also suggest setting you shutter speed at the highest speed that sync's with you flashes, usually 1/250 or 1/320. Ralph Paonessa has a good tutorial on his web site for hummingbirds that is free. Linda Robbins co-authored a book with Artie that is available from BPN for $50.
Trying to get some good hummingbird photos is very addicting.
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