![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/black-chinned-hummingbird-4508-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"black-chinned-hummingbird-2024-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\nWhether or not it appeals to you aesthetically, it’s an interesting phenomenon.<\/p>\n
For the last few days I’ve been making adjustments to my camera gear in an effort to sleuth out a problem with sharpness I’ve been having. I’ll report those results when and if I get it all figured out (I’m making progress) but I thought one of the test shots I took yesterday morning was good enough, and interesting enough, to warrant its own post.<\/p>\n
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1\/8000, f\/5.6, ISO 2500, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n For most of the early morning my vegetable garden is in deep shade cast by some huge neighborhood trees to the east but occasionally I get very brief, filtered, patchy light on a few of my zinnias. That makes for some highly challenging shooting conditions. Usually I’m shooting at high ISO’s to get more shutter speed in the shade. I use aperture priority so when a hummer, usually a Black-chinned Hummingbird, visits a well-lit flower my shutter speed skyrockets. As it did here.<\/p>\n Despite some minor imperfections, including a flower slightly past its prime and a couple of spots on the flower that are overexposed, I really like this shot. The hummer and flower are sharp, I like the bird’s flight posture and I actually got a clean background that doesn’t include any out of focus tomato cages. Those rusty old cages are less than attractive.<\/p>\n And for me the color of the flower reflected on the bird’s belly and throat is a bonus. It’s a natural phenomenon that I see occasionally with feeding hummingbirds but in the past the reflected color has never been this intense. And no, I didn’t do anything during processing to enhance that color. All I did was crop, adjust exposure and sharpen.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n And by the way. Earlier that same morning I saw my first Rufous Hummingbirds in my garden, two of them, since the late summer of 2022. Now, if I can only solve my intermittent but persistent sharpness problems, things will be looking up.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Whether or not it appeals to you aesthetically, it’s an interesting phenomenon.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/rufous-hummingbird-4508-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"rufous-hummingbird-4508-ron-dudley\\"")
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