I almost went to San Diego area this mornign to look for some Cedar waxwings
but I changed my mind at the last minute and I went to Big Morongo area instead.
But I got no shot,very few birds out there today. So I relied on my steady subject,
my buddy hummers and I got some descent shots. I wanted to get a full gorget
color and I only saw it a few times but I couldn't get it.
Still so few hummers at the house. I feel lonely... Going from 30 + to maybe 5 max is a drastic thing to deal with.
I'm not doing picks here - - that would be unfair to any of them.
Lil
Thank you, Li. I'm sorry to hear about the decreasing numner of hummers at your house. I get my hummers but probably 2-3. You used to get 30? Whew! That's a
lot of hummer traffic!
72chevelle454 wrote:
I really like the ones with the creamy brown bkgs the best.. Nice work Hide
Thank you, Chad. I used two completely different BGs so that someone would probably like one of them.
Hide
Nello Milanese wrote:
Absolutely perfect Hide i'm blown away completely here
Dohmo Arigato! My ideal hummer shot in winter would be an in-flight shot with
a snow-capped mountain but I may have to use a special backdrop for that kind of
shoot. I'm also thinking about Christmas theme hummer shots. What would they
look like,huh? I have no idea.
Hide, tremendous stuff. You are clearly several notches above than most photogs hwen it comes to hummers...whoa !
It would be great if you could share your trade secret and tell us mortals how you achieve such sharpness,detail and beautiful background blur, it would be appreciated !!
reko wrote:
Great shots, detail and color are first rate, nice shootin'.
Thank you, Reko.
Hide
kirry007 wrote:
* After picking up my jaw from the floor... *
Hide, tremendous stuff. You are clearly several notches above than most photogs hwen it comes to hummers...whoa !
It would be great if you could share your trade secret and tell us mortals how you achieve such sharpness,detail and beautiful background blur, it would be appreciated !!
Kiran
Thank you, Kiran. My master is Keith Rankin and I've learnt a lot form him
but I had to go through lots of trials and errors. He wrote a great article about
how to shoot hummingbirds and this is a must-read article if you're interested in
hummingbird flash photography.
I use both oil paintings and prints for my backdrop. I found an easy way to make
a print BG. Take a flower picture,plants or even a garden but take an unfocused image.
Because the BG doean't have to be sharp ,the unfocused image will be just
fine for the BG. If you already fave some floral pictures, then blurr them in PS and
get a 24x20 print at your local Office Max or somewhere.
I use D300 and 300 f4-afs and I usually use 1/250s, f/8-11,iso 320-500.
All my flashes are set to manual,and I use M 1/16 to see how the image will look
like and constantly check the exposure using histogram.
I think 5 flashes are a sweet spot and whether you need 5 flashes or 6 flashes
all depends on how many flashes you want for the BG. I used one flash for the BG.
i'm blown away completely here 
My ideal hummer shot in winter would be an in-flight shot with