Allen's hummingbirds

At least I think that's what these are. There is a pair that we noticed yesterday calling and flitting in our backyard. Gayle got out her camera and got some shots of the two (one of them in flight) on our hummingbird feeder. In between their darting in and out of our magnolia one of the them repeatedly perched on our clothes line. So Gayle told me to get out my camera and try to get some shots in, too.

It was in early evening and I wasn't quite sure how clear any picture would turn out -- even after raising my camera's ISO setting as high as I dared (ISO 1000) without beginning to see noise artifacts. I walked out into the backyard, then slowly approached a sago palm that grows next to the clothes line. I got to within a few feet of the hummer on the clothes line and took a lot of shots. Most of them were no good, but I liked the look of the following pictures:

These are all close crops of the original images, so it looks like I'm much closer than I really was.

The mating behavior continued on all day today. I suspect we may find a nest in the near future, which would be too cool.

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 70-200mm VR zoom; aperture-priority, with aperture set at f/4; camera chose shutter speed of 1/100 second at ISO 1000; center-weighted metered; -0.7 exposure compensation; auto white balance; normal JPG.)

A hummingbird sampler

We have hummingbirds in our neighborhood year-round. There's one feeder hanging outside our master bathroom window, and another hanging in our back patio. They are constantly buzzing and chirping.

I use a tripod-mounted Nikon 300mm f/4 lens most of the time when photographing hummingbirds, although I have hand-held it on some occasions. Mounted on a Nikon DX DSLR, like my D300, the 300mm has an angle of view equivalent to a 450mm lens mounted on a 35mm film or full-frame DSLR. I can never get close enough to get some really cool shots taken by my friends that I've seen.

Usually the best light for me has been during the late-afternoon or early evening like this:

In the mid-summer's early evening the birds are backlit, which outlines them nicely but can pose an exposure problem:

In the former picture I did not add any exposure compensation, but in the latter picture I added one stop. I just took a picture, previewed it and looked at its histogram, then adjusted my exposure accordingly.

I've always liked this hummingbird picture best:

The light was wonderful in how it sculpted the shape of the bird and also how there is detail in the shadows and yet the highlights aren't overexposed.

Finally, I only have two flying hummingbird pictures that are worth sharing, so I picked this one:

I used shutter-priority on all these pictures because these birds are fast; just pick a fast shutter speed (like 1/1000 second or faster) and let the camera worry about picking the aperture.

(Shot with the Nikon D200 using a Nikon 300mm f/4 lens; shutter-priority with shutter speed set between 1/800 second and 1/1250 second; normal or fine JPG.)