Imagemaster is getting me all excited posting his Hummer pics and and I am little bit farther north than he is so my hummers are just starting to settle in, I think there is a couple of females starting to hang around and there has been a few migrating through, soon I will be able to take pictures.

So here are some of my favorites from last year which was my first year of taking Hummingbird pictures. I hope you like them.

Outstanding Hummer pics. An fantastic series where my favorite are the first two. Excellent work

Amazing shots! I particularly like 2 and 4.

Totally first class! How'd you get them to pose? (Sprayed with startch I think! )

Truly jaw-dropping.

Wow these are great

These are the best I've seen.Great images.

amazing!...wowowowow!!

Outstanding Hummies!!!!!!
I would tone down the bgs a bit as not to have them compete with the perfect birds

Simply beautiful Martin - that second one is amazing! Thanks for brightening my morning

Beautiful!! #2 is my favorite- also, the 2nd to the last- is that a grass reed in his beak? Outstanding colors and sharpness on these!!

Tim

Wow, these have to be the best hummingbird pics I have ever seen! not only did you get the exposuer and color right on, you also managed to get the images tach sharp! I don't know what ells to say, but wow!
Did you set up strobes on ether side??

Great images

Thanks for sharing.

Absolutely gorgeous photos. I'd love to shoot hummers sometime but not sure how. Would you like to share some techniques and equipment tips?

Amazing shoots! Thanks for sharing with us

Thanks everybody for the nice comments.

Fabiolad: Good point about the backgrounds, I am going to do them different this year and have them more plane.

Timinator: That's the tongue!

Pnorth: Yes I use strobes from the side, front and back.

Laura: Here is an article I wrote for photos-of-the-year.
http://www.photos-of-the-year.com/hummingbird/

I picked up a lot of information from this article.
http://www.rpphoto.com/howto/hummer/humguide1.htm

Martin

Here are a few more, I try to get different angles and not just the Hummingbird from the side with the wings back.

OK, Martin, you can't display a series like that and not expect a howling mob at your door asking how you did that! Please, please, give us a detailed description!
Bert

Incredible shots.
Any chance of getting them without a flash?
It looks like you are using at least three.

Thanks Bert and Dna for the comments.

Bert: There is some info on my previous reply to Laura.

Dna: I have seen lots of very nice natural light Hummingbird pictures, I think all you need is some good light, fast glass and flowers or feeders to attract them. I used the 70-300ED for these pictures and it needs to be stopped down to get good results so flash was pretty well necessary, this year I have a 300 f4 afs so I will try some more natural light pictures.

Oh, com'on admit it, theese are stuffed animals, I mean stuffed humming birds and you just hang them on your porch with semi-invisible fishing lines.

DAmn good pics and focusing skills, budd.

- MS

Great in-flight shots Martin. Pretty hard to capture them in flight with good DOF without using flash.

Tony

Outstanding work here, you have some skill and it shows

Thank you very much msoo, Tony and Rob.

One thing I do different than a lot of Hummingbird shooters is that I will use handheld and autofocus a lot, this way you can get the shot when the bird is out of position in your setup and you get the interesting poses, lots of times they are just a twisted jumble of feathers that doesn't make a good picture but occasionlly you get a something interesting.

Here are couple with black backrounds, I prefer a lighted background but sometimes it still makes a nice shot.

Hi:

Fantastic. Did you use your 70-300 ED for these shots. WOW, and people question that lens. Your color and detail is absolutly incredible. Thanks for showing these.

Thanks Jeff, yes it was the 70-300ED. Its a good lens when used with in its limitations.

Martin