A little boy hummer (pics included)

[Steve Foss]

Figured I'd pass a little time after work, so I plopped down in a lawn chair with a beer six feet from the hummer feeder, where adults and juvies have been at it fast and furious the last couple of weeks. I know some have reported skittish hummers in their yards. I'm no Dr. Dolittle or anything. Can't speak hummer or all that rot, but the ones we've had all summer since moving to this house come right in and don't seem to mind being close. Earlier in the year, when I got some hummer shots, I stood with the feeder nearly bumping my hip to force the hummers to stop to look the situation over on a perch I'd set up about six feet away. It worked, but several times hummers would come right in and drink from the feeder, inches from me. Go figure. Guess they thought that, as long as I didn't move, I was just a big ole fat tree or something.

Now, these shots are not fine art. A photo editor at a birding glossy mag would consider them average, routine, nothing special at all. But that's not the point for most who take pictures. For most, it's just nice to get this kind of image. Also, while it wouldn't sell to the mags, I really like the first image, and a print, matted and mounted and framed carefully and with taste, would look darn nice. And if you learn how to get these shots, it's only a matter of time spent at it and patience before something really spectacular will happen in front of you. And then, having already figured out your settings and lighting, you'll NAIL it!

One tip: I didn't get the in-flight shot as the hummer came in, but on purpose startled him off the perch while he was feeding by using the fill flash. It popped him off the perch, and he idled in flight about a foot from the feeder for several seconds before coming back to rest. I did this several times in a row, capturing sharp images at 1/250 with the fill flash while he hovered. It doesn't work with the adults here, which, when they're perched and feeding, usually just flutter their wings at the flash and keep feeding. The juvies are just a little less secure about the whole thing.

Both images, of the same juvenile male hummer, from the Canon 20D and Canon 100-400L IS at iso400. Flat light under medium cloud cover.

1/250 at f7.1, 400mm, handheld, using fill flash and custom setting to synch flash at 1/250 in Av (shutter priority) mode, full frame. IS makes a big difference when the subject is relatively stationary. To get this sharp handholding a non IS 400mm, I'd have needed a shutter speed of at least 1/1000. And, even with a smooth ballhead on a tripod, I can't react fast enough to get in-flight shots like these, so I have to handhold. Even a monopod can slow me down too much on these shots.

Even though the foreground feeder is distracting (and I don't generally like feeders in bird shots), I like how he's peeking at me, and the OOF foreground feeder and smooth background bokeh do isolate him OK. I really included this one because of the telltale throat streaks that indicate a juvie male hummer, not to mention the little patch of red in the center

1/640 at f7.1, 320mm, handheld, 50% crop.

[Deitz Dittrich]

as a non-photo guy, who I am sure I can not do all the things you say with setting with my cannon a610... I can say, them are some sweet shots... I tried my dardest to take a decent hummer shot after all I saw on here... and will keep them to myself. There wasted an hour of my life!.. back to fishing!

Thanks Steve!!!! awesome shots.. !

[Dbl]

Looks real nice Steve, thanks for the background info.

[floating minnow]

Very nice Steve. I don't know if I have ever seen a Hummers face up close like this.

[Steve Foss]

Thanks guys.

Hey DD: An hour wasted? Huh? An hour spent among hummers is never wasted. It's not like you were getting skunked for bass for an hour, right?

[MT Net]

Nice pics, the last one looks as if he's watching you. Tough to figure who's on display here.

Well good, I see you added the exif information. Very helpful IMHO to see the values and results, thanks.

And about the feeder in the pics, I don;t know, I may be the only one who doesn't mind the feeder foreground, background, etc. To me, it gives a perspective of man and nature working together. That's the wonderful aspect of art, personal interpretation.

[Tom Wilson]

Steve,

Sometimes you do what you can with hummers. They can be very difficult sometimes. Do you know what caused the double catch light in the first photo? I am pretty confident that you didn't include it, as I think you are more of a purist than that, but that doesn't happen naturally. I assume that the top one is the flash light based on size and shape. It's the long, odd shaped one at the bottom that looks a little off. Since it's on the bottom of the eye, I'm guessing it was something reflecting a whole lot of light. It's not a big deal, I am just wondering if you know what it was that caused it. Was it a reflector?

[Steve Foss]

Hi Tom:

Oh I definitely agree that one works with what one has. I've seen skittish hummers, hard to approach. Just doesn't describe the individuals who are hanging around my yard this summer.

Not really sure what you mean by double catch light.

If you mean the bottom of the hummer is brighter than you'd expect because the flash tends to angle slighty down toward the bird and light the middle and top more than the bottom, then I guess I understand. What you're asking me is whether there was something in the scene that served as a bounce and reflected flash from underneath the bird to light its underside, or whether I in fact set something up to do that on purpose.

There was nothing like that. It was hovering about three feet above the lawn, which is dark green grass that was fairly long, and wouldn't be much of a reflector with the small pop of the fill flash. The feeder was about three feet in front of the bird, and there was nothing else within about 15 feet. If by double catch light you're referring to the second white strip of refection toward the bottom of the bird's eye, then I don't know how that got there. But I have been photographing people and animals and birds outdoors for many years, sometimes with flash and sometimes without, and I've seen reflections in the eyes of subjects that don't appear to make sense. I guess it's possible that the light reflected off the shiny convex surface of the feeder, which was at an angle below the bird, though some distance off, and caused the second strip of reflection.

I hope that answers your questions. If not, please clarify for me. As for your reference to my being a purist, I don't know if I am. That is a subjective term that means different things to different people, and I don't know exactly what you'd consider pure or not pure.

[Steve Foss]

I looked up the term. Now I understand. No, I don't employ techniques that bounce flash from various angles when I'm shooting nature. I'm not necessarily above doing that, or think it impure if I were shooting, say, a flower and there was heavy shadow that I didn't want that I could brighten with a reflector. I mean, anyone using flash on nature photography in the first place is removing one level of reality from the image by introducing artificial light.

[Tom Wilson]

Steve,

I was simply referring to the light at the bottom of the eye. It is odd for two bright spots (catch lights) to appear in the eye. As far as the purist thing, my only implication was that you don't strike me as a person who would have placed the catch light in the eye with photoshop. It is done quite often, by a lot of people. Some admit to it, some don't, but it is usually obvious. Knowing what I know of you, and what I've seen of your work, this doesn't look PS'd, so I was naturally curious as to what caused the white strip at the bottom of the eye.

[Steve Foss]

Gotcha. Thanks for explaining. Your last post was perfectly clear to me, while your previous one was not. In other words: Shoot, Tom, why didn't you just say exactly what you meant the first time?