My Third Day With The Antelope Island Hummingbirds

I spent three mornings with the Hummingbirds of Antelope Island last week.  Each day the number of birds and amount of activity declined so I’m thinking some of them are moving out.  All but one of these images are from the third day.

Despite my lack of experience shooting hummingbirds I’m already developing preferences for settings and backgrounds when photographing them.  My tastes are sometimes overwhelmed by all the flower color, especially when there’s so many flowers and they’re all the same color so I like as much variety as I can get in my backgrounds.   Shades of pink have never been my favorite colors…

 

hummingbird 8025 ron dudley

 1/2500, f/5.6, ISO 640, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not set up

I’d often get backgrounds like this – a mixture of out of focus flowers (Rocky Mountain Bee Plant) and greenery.  There’s a lot of color here but it works pretty well for me because the background flowers are so soft and out of focus.   When they’re more in focus back there I find them distracting.  I have many shots like that, where I really like the bird but the background –  not so much.

 

 

hummingbird 7334 ron dudley

 1/2500, f/5.6, ISO 640, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not set up

Occasionally I’d get a bird feeding at an isolated flower with the golden color of dried grasses in morning light as background, which I like for variety (and for the fact that it’s not an artificial or Photoshopped background as is so often the case for shots like this).

 

 

hummingbird 8146 ron dudley

 1/4000, f/5.6, ISO 640, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not set up

But I think my favorites are those where I mostly have greenery of the bee plant as background and the bird is hovering slightly away from the flower, which gives a great look at the entire bird rather than having the bill buried in the flower and partially hidden.  But then I like the feeding behavior too, so I guess I’m vacillating – nothing new for me, especially when I’m venturing into unexplored territory (lack of experience shooting hummers).

 

hummingbird 8210 ron dudley

 1/2000, f/5.6, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not set up

I got a few shots with the beak open and tongue sticking out.   This image isn’t my best technically but I like the behavior.

In a comment on one of my two hummingbird posts last week, Jo Smith provided a link to an absolutely fascinating clip about hummingbird tongues.  If you didn’t see it then I highly recommend that you watch it.   Thank you, Jo!

 

 

hummingbird 8086 ron dudley

 1/4000, f/5.6, ISO 640, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light, not set up

One last shot of one of the birds feeding.

Something I’m still trying to wrap my head around to some degree is the relationship between shutter speed, depth of field and the sharpness of the whirring wings when shooting these tiny birds in flight.  The shutter speed of the third and fifth images was extremely fast but the wings in those images don’t seem to be significantly sharper than the other shots with much slower shutter speeds.  That may be because the wings at the apex position are moving slower than they are during the downbeat, it may be a depth of field thing at f/5.6 or it may be a combination of the two.

Figuring it out and fine tuning my technique next summer (or earlier if the birds hang around a little longer) should be fun.

Ron

 

 

25 Comments

  1. What incredible shots! I think you’re dead on on your shooting. These are simply amazing.
    Charlotte

  2. beautiful shots, Ron! Such detail!

  3. Glad you enjoyed the link, my cousin sent it to me as she knows I feed the hummers all summer. She lives in Texas so we let each other know when they are headed in each others direction. I wouldn’t worry too much about the back grounds, most of us are too busy looking at the birds to notice.

  4. You had three days with the hummingbirds, and I have had hours of fun. Visiting and re-visiting. Thank you. And thank you to Jo for that incredible clip.

  5. Hi Ron,
    As much as I enjoy your photographs I also enjoy your comments. I’m also trying to learn from all your settings. One question for now is, how do you get the bird and the flower both sharp? Where do you focus your camera on? When I ‘m birding and handholding my camera I spot focus on the bird’s eye. I’d appreciate any tips on this subject.
    Maha

    • Maha, I always focus on the eye, or as close to it as I can. There’s not much DOF with the gear I use so usually the flower has to be in very close to the same plane as the bird to get them both sharp. Notice that’s the case in all of these shots (at least with the primary flower). I have many images where the bird is good and sharp but the main flower isn’t because it’s too far in front of or behind the bird.

  6. More wonderful photos! I’m surprised that the hummingbirds were still around last week. My experience has been that they migrate in mid-April and mid-August, especially in places that have real winters.

  7. I love the colors in the first picture (but then I really like the color pink!) The background is so soft.

  8. Well, I sure botched my HTML coding! 🙁 Just click on anything underlined.

    • Wow, Dwynn – that article’s going to take some study. Their point about the long axis humerus rotation immediately grabbed my attention. I had never heard hummingbirds referred to as “vertebrate insects” but it certainly fits.

  9. Hi Ron- enjoyed your Hummer images. I too have fooled around with settings on my Canon for speed and DOF this summer. I like the blurred background not cluttered and the wings sharp. I have found shooting at 4000 speed to work well but, still not sure on F-stop- have shot anywhere from 2.8 to 5.6 without seeing a big difference in DOF. Used the 300mm 2.8 on a 1DMK4. Look forward to your posts daily- Keep up the Great work!

    Bob Karcz

    • Bob, I can only get down to 5.6 with the tc on the 500mm. That seems to give pretty good DOF for both the bird and the large flower if the bird is close to it. Then I hope for enough light to use higher shutter speeds.

  10. Ron – I presume that the speckles on the wings in pix 2 and 3 are pollen. What great pollinators! My favorite is the second pic. Thanks for the clip. I love hummers!

    MarkNDenver

  11. I love, love, love these photos! Some of my favorite ever! Thanks for taking some time with hummingbirds.

  12. Wonderful Photos Ron and thank you for the incredible clip ! Here’s some clips to a documentary on “Nature ” from PBS about Hummingbirds I think you and others might enjoy.Here’s the link:

    http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/lessons/the-physics-of-hummingbirds-magic-in-the-air/video-segments/5725/

    The clip I enjoyed most was how the Hummingbird conserves energy. Thanks !

  13. Great photos Ron. And you’re right that clip is very much worth watching ! I sent it on to my Birding Bunch. Thank you Jo & Ron.

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