Feeder Photos

Sunday, August 19, 2007
Nappin' in the Golden Hour
This is my friend from the other day. Like I said he was back in the evening, and the light just kept getting more and more beautiful.

Friday, August 17, 2007
After Dinner Nap
Truth be known it is more of a DURING dinner nap.
He was sitting there napping and licking his chops.
Then, every so often, he would wake up (almost) then lean
over and take a few sips. He let me get very close, but
his friend (mom?) was a little excited at one point.
I don't think I freaked them out too much though because
they came back later in the evening after leaving for a bit to
let me clean the feeder and make fresh food. He was watching,
because I barely had the feeder back up and he was on it
while I was still standing there.
The last time we had a hummer do this he was staking out the
back yard to raise a family. I'm not sure it is the right time
of year for that, but I'll be watching.

Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Fly-thru
There have been some really important people interested
in my hummingbirds at the shows lately. :)
(see yesterday's post)
So I decided to look through some of the
images I still have tucked away.
This was one of the first ones that
jumped out at me.
The one in flight is exactly what I love to capture
when I am chasing hummers. His face is sharp
and his beak, but you can still see the movement
of flight. And, the guy on the feeder looks
like he is conducting an orchestra.
Many of the hummingbird shots you see
are done with a strobe, a very fast flash.
A strobe freezes the action and you do not have to depend
upon the speed of the camera's shutter.
The best cameras these days reach their limits at around 1/8000th
of a second, my AE-1
goes down to 1/1000th. This image was taken between 1/100th and 1/250th of a second.
Extremely high speed strobes
can go down to a millionth of a second, because they
do not depend upon mechanics like shutters.
Unfortunately strobe images come out looking a little
clinical for my tastes. But then again, they are all just tools
it really depends upon how you use them.

Monday, July 18, 2005
Hummers
The top hummingbird is actually the same bird as in this photo. She was hovering around the feeder for quite a while checking out the strange creature with the 200mm nose.