Post your Hummingbird Photos

blackstar · Feb 20, 2021

wev, Can't blame you, but kind of giving up posting my HB photos after viewing all your marvelous, fantastic images. Although not equipped with the best camera and lenses like yours and not owning good skills and experiences like you, I still want to try my best. So mind sharing your shooting settings like: focus mode (Manual, AF-C, AF-S, AF-A,...), focus area (single-point, dynamic area, 3D-tracking, Auto-area, wide-area, normal-area,...), and metering (matrix, center-weighted, spot metering,...)? You may set differently for various occasions. Please explain. Thanks and much appreciated. You (and everyone) may evaluate my recent try:

Peter7100 · Feb 21, 2021

blackstar said:
wev, Can't blame you, but kind of giving up posting my HB photos after viewing all your marvelous, fantastic images.

I don't think Wev should be allowed to post again as he is setting the bar too high for those of us new to bird photography

wev · Feb 21, 2021

blackstar said:
wev, Can't blame you, but kind of giving up posting my HB photos after viewing all your marvelous, fantastic images. Although not equipped with the best camera and lenses like yours and not owning good skills and experiences like you, I still want to try my best. So mind sharing your shooting settings like: focus mode (Manual, AF-C, AF-S, AF-A,...), focus area (single-point, dynamic area, 3D-tracking, Auto-area, wide-area, normal-area,...), and metering (matrix, center-weighted, spot metering,...)? You may set differently for various occasions. Please explain. Thanks and much appreciated. You (and everyone) may evaluate my recent try:

Thank you for the kind praise.

I use pretty much the same setup for everything. Manual, auto iso to 3200, AF-C, 25 point, spot metering. I always shoot at f9 and no slower than 1/200, kicking it up as need be, but trying to stay below 1600 iso. I almost always shoot from a tripod, as I have a wonky right hand that tires very fast. I am too lazy to shoot RAW or do much more than crop and fiddle shadows a bit in post.

What success I have is more to do with patience and observation than camera work. I am a very sedate birder and tend to go to the same places over and over again. Birds, especially hummers, establish favorite spots depending on the season and time of day. I pay very close attention to these habits over repeated visits. If I see a hummer repeatedly go to a certain twig, I just find a good vantage point, adjust my settings, and wait, pretending to be a bush. Doesn't always work, but most times they'll just ignore you after a while if you don't go dancing around. The downside, of course, is my pictures tend to be highly repetitive. I do get lucky on occasion and am in the right place at the right time for something unusual. I also take a boatload of picture, but keep maybe 10% on a good day.

blackstar · Feb 21, 2021

Hi Wev, Thank you so much for sharing all the details. I used to think and take patience is good medicine for healing and recovery. Now I may add it's the ultimate practice for rendering success in almost everything. Observation is definitely another (or the only) way of perceiving nature's wonder. Both practices take time and mind for making fruitful. It's shown in all your wonderful photos. As for the timing to shoot, I wonder if there's some contradiction when considering Hum's favorite spot and time of the day (lighting condition). I have found a spot the Hum frequents, but the time it would let me take shots (stationary on a branch for a little while) is often in the late afternoon when the sun is down a bit and all I have is a cast of dark Hum! I check your Hum photos, especially recent postings, you shot them mostly around noontime (best lighting?) and they all show amazing colors (especially under the chin area with the "scales" sharply revealed). So I tried the spot around noontime and did see the Hum flying around, back and forth, up and down, moving to other trees and disappear... well, guess it's busy time for it not a good time posting for me. I almost could hear it says: be patient...

BTW, you use 25 points focus area. Is that the 3D-tracking? My D3500 only has 11 points for 3D-tracking. Currently, I use single center point. Should I consider changing to 3D? What's the advantage of the 3-D focus area? Thanks