Based on my (partial) success with shooting hummers in fight and the kind advice of several people who reviewed the results I posted, I've developed a method to induce these swift little folks to hang around for a few fractions of a second longer. My successful capture rate has gone up dramatically. I got a vinegar bottle and with various scraps from the shop fashioned a feeder and painted it red, brewed up some potent sugar water (want a drink little birdy ). (After I finished all this work, I noticed a $10 ready made feeder in the grocery store )
Finding a place to hang it took a bit of trial and error. I ended up dangling it from the eaves of an adobe out building. The background visible in these images is mostly the well seasoned 60 year old vigas and latias of the roof and occasionally a bit of sky. Everything is still shot mostly at 2.8 or maybe 4.0, still mostly early morning. Several suggestions have been made to try fill flash and I'm going to investigate that next. Still, I rather like most of these shots.
I know that once again they aren't the traditional beautiful floral backgrounds and amazing crisply detailed stuff normally displayed on this forum obtained with those lovely 500 to 800 canons so many have here, but I guess I'm a sort of everyman with an old 1D and a 200mm (just got a battered old 300!!) trying to appreciate who I live with along this acequia.
1 a black chin male considering the bribe
2 a male relative with a much fancier suit - he's definitely styling
3 a lovely black chin lady all a twitter about a possible seduction
I sure agree with you on the lovely black-chinned females. They are graceful and look like ballet dancers. Nice job. When was that hand dug ditch built?
Al
Karl, care to share your sharpening technique? It really made such a wonderful difference.
Robert, I wish you would have taken a shot of your feeder! Maybe it's something you can patent and sell! It definitely works to seduce those little guys. I would be so happy to see one of those colorful hummers along with our Anna's.
Karl Witt wrote:
Just a little pat on the back for some nice shots, here is one of yours with a light amount of adjustment, mainly sharpening to let you know how good it is
Keep working on these and perhaps a bit more exposure allowance yet, check you White Balance and have it set to Automatic.
Nice imrprovements
Karl
Karl,
Thanks for the demo! I did some light sharpening on these and a tiny bit of work with the levels. I tend to error on the conservative side, being of the documentation school unless I'm trying to do "art". I'm going back and being more aggressive with each of these. I think I had white balance on cloudy to try to compensate for the early morning lack of light. I also realized I don't have this "new" DII set 1/3 stop to the right which is how I normally try to shoot. Will correct that.
Shasoc, by bright spots are you referring to on the birds or background?
Drake, the Griegos Acequia followed the remains of a ditch left by the Tiguex who abandoned Albuquerque before the arrival of the Spanish. It has been greatly expanded upon over that last 300 years.
Jeanette, the feeder is too ugly for a pix. Think I'll buy a nice one.
Dick, thanks guy.
Thanks for the demo! I did some light sharpening on these and a tiny bit of work with the levels. I tend to error on the conservative side, being of the documentation school unless I'm trying to do "art". I'm going back and being more aggressive with each of these. I think I had white balance on cloudy to try to compensate for the early morning lack of light. I also realized I don't have this "new" DII set 1/3 stop to the right which is how I normally try to shoot. Will correct that.
Assuming you shot these in RAW, try looking at them in Canons DPP software and toggle the White Balance to Auto and see how they are, most often the Auto WB will be just fine IMO
Karl
). (After I finished all this work, I noticed a $10 ready made feeder in the grocery store 
) 
