The elusive Hummingbird

I have been photographing birds and other nature subjects for the past 3 years. It always amazed me how my photography opened my eyes to nature's beauty that was previously overlooked because of life's many distractions.

Hummingbirds are one of  my photographic favorites that I had rarely seen before, much less observed or photographed. They are so small, delicate and quick that they will escape your observation unless you are focused on watching for them. In order to attract Hummingbirds, I set up a couple of feeders and my wife planted some colorful plants. After awhile, I was getting the Hummingbirds to my feeders and I was able to photograph them. They rarely went to the flowers to feed however and thus I was not able to get the neat shots of the Hummingbirds feeding around colorful blossoms.

The other day, mother nature must have smiled on me as a hungry Hummingbird went to work on some flower blossoms on the deck. Even more importantly, I noticed the feeding, grabbed my camera and started clicking. In the several minutes the Hummingbird was feeding, I must have taken several hundred images which I later edited. Yes, it was an exciting couple of minutes for me and as I went through the images I saw poses of the Hummingbird I had never observed before.

Not only was I fortunate to catch the Hummingbird feeding on the flower blossoms, the light was also great for making the captures. I used a Canon 1D Mk IV camera with a Canon 100-400mm lense. I shot the images at a high shutterspeed instead of using a flash.

The 2 images of the Ruby-throated Hummingbird on this blog post are from that session. One image was processed for more natural colors and on the other one I used textures and actions to give the image a unique look.

I will be uploading a set of these Hummingbird images to my website in the next week for your enjoyment or purchase.

Muddy River Photography

Until next time,

Al