{"id":117730,"date":"2022-08-30T05:47:14","date_gmt":"2022-08-30T11:47:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=117730"},"modified":"2022-08-30T10:48:09","modified_gmt":"2022-08-30T16:48:09","slug":"female-black-chinned-hummingbird-and-a-photography-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2022\/08\/30\/female-black-chinned-hummingbird-and-a-photography-challenge\/","title":{"rendered":"Female Black Chinned Hummingbird And A Photography Challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"

A progress report on a photography challenge I’ve recently assigned myself. I figure if I make my goal public it’ll provide extra motivation to succeed.<\/p>\n

I haven’t had many hummingbirds in my back yard for most of the summer but beginning about two weeks ago their numbers skyrocketed. Black-chinned and Rufous Hummingbirds galore have been warring over my nectar feeder on the north side of my house and taking refuge in my roses, grape vines, catalpa trees and the very tall amaranth plants in my garden. I’ve been itching to photograph them in flight for weeks.<\/p>\n

But except for practice I don’t photograph birds at feeders and I don’t post photos of baited birds to my blog so my frustration level has escalated at the same rate as the number of hummers in my back yard. What to do?<\/p>\n

A few days ago I thought of a possible, if unlikely, solution.<\/p>\n

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I have a trumpet vine that is literally consuming my fireplace on the east side of my house and the Rufous Hummingbirds in particular love to feed on its nectar. It seems like the ideal solution to my dilemma but there’s a reason I haven’t photographed hummers there before.<\/p>\n

Because of my neighbor’s tall trees on the east side of my house the trumpet vine is in deep shade until after 8:40 in the morning (I’m not complaing about your trees, Shane Smith. I love’em) so my shutter speed is dismally slow. Have you ever tried to photograph hummers in flight with a shutter speed ranging from 1\/100th of a second to 1\/400th of a second? Good luck with that!<\/p>\n

So, why don’t I just wait until the sun hits the trumpet vine? Almost the instant that happens it gets so damn hot on that side of my house the hummers abandon the trumpet vine and take refuge somewhere in the shade. They just disappear so I have a dilemma.<\/p>\n

But I started thinking about it. Theoretically it should be possible to get sharp photos of hummers in flight at those incredibly slow shutter speeds if I’m willing to accept their wings being nothing more than a wispy blur. So I’ve been trying. So far without success because in such low light, autofocus slows down so much the hummer in flight is usually gone before I can lock focus on it.<\/p>\n

But I still think it’s possible so I’m determined to keep trying.<\/p>\n

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1\/400, f\/5.6, ISO 3200, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

So far I’ve only been able to get sharp shots of the hummers when one of them perches on one of the dead trumpet vine twigs and even that doesn’t happen very often. Yesterday morning this female Black-chinned Hummingbird held still for long enough for me to get quite a few sharp shots of her.<\/p>\n

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1\/400, f\/5.6, ISO 3200, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

She never posed much but I didn’t have the shutter speed for it anyway (sometimes it’s as slow as 1\/100th of a second, even at ISO 3200). At one point though, she did give me a pretty nice demonstration of rhynchokinesis. Check out the tip of her bill.<\/p>\n

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Now I’ve challenged myself publicly so that should light (or intensify) a fire in me to work on getting sharp shots of hummers in flight as they’re feeding on my trumpet vine. We’ll see how that<\/em> turns out…<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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Notes:<\/em><\/p>\n