Hello from Michigan

DrJ

New member
Hi everyone. i am back into photography after many years of just fooling around with point and shoot cameras. my friend Bill in Annapolis got me interested in a serious digital camera when we were visiting and i was bragging about the fantastic camera in my Samsung phone. He invited me to take some pix of hummingbirds at his feeder. I was humbled at what great shots he got with his nice Canon something or other and what grey blobs I got with my phone. He offered me one of his Canon bodies but none of my Dad's (he was a pro) Canon lenses would fit the Canon body. After some research i discovered that Dad's old Nikon lenses that I had enjoyed on his old Nikkormat would work fine on a Nikon DSLR. So I found a nice D7100 with a 10-200mm zoom lens on Ebay. Got a new Sigma 150-600 Contemporary for my birthday and have enjoyed covering my granddaughter's sports career and learning about birds and bird photography photography.

I love my new camera and am back in the photography game.
Hummer with flash_02.jpg
 
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Bikerbrent

Senior Member
Welcome aboard, enjoy the ride. We look forward to seeing more posts and samples of your work.

OH! By the way! Will I get 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 posting credits for this listing? I have no idea and will have to wait and see!
 

BF Hammer

Senior Member
Welcome and Hello from across the lake. I hope we don't have any problems during football/basketball seasons. :)

I had a comparable photo gear journey 20 years ago. I went from having shooting a vintage Minolta film SLR to a couple of Nikon Coolpix digicams. But discovering the slow speeds was limiting me, I bought into a new Nikon D80 and a series of upgrades in the 15 years since.

To this day I cannot take a steady cellphone camera shot but no issue to me with a real camera.
 

Dangerspouse

Senior Member
Hey, welcome DrJ! That was quite a story. Looking forwards to seeing how you put that gear to good use now, especially sports photos with that great Sigma lens!

I do have a question about that hummingbird picture you posted here. The EXIF data shows you shot it at 1/160th of a second at ISO 160. Is that correct? When I shoot hummingbirds in flight, anything less that 1/2000th shutter speed results in significant wing blur. To me, 1/160th of a second is almost unimaginable! That's extremely well done if those numbers are accurate!
 
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DrJ

New member
The Exif data is correct. I used my Godox flash to light the scene. manual mode, remote trigger i/16th power. Set the flash up about 6 ft from the feeder and set the camera up about 15 ft behind the flash gun. I focused manually on the feeder perch and waited for the bird to approach. f11 gave me a little depth of field and the short flash duration froze the motion. That was my first attempt using the flash. On the downside, I think the flash may have spooked her a little as i didn't see her for a day or two after my capture.
 

DrJ

New member
The Exif data is correct. I used my Godox flash to light the scene. manual mode, remote trigger i/16th power. Set the flash up about 6 ft from the feeder and set the camera up about 15 ft behind the flash gun. I focused manually on the feeder perch and waited for the bird to approach. f11 gave me a little depth of field and the short flash duration froze the motion. That was my first attempt using the flash. On the downside, I think the flash may have spooked her a little as i didn't see her for a day or two after my capture.

Read more: https://nikonites.com/new-member-introductions/46236-hello-michigan.html#ixzz7baIFGRHS
 
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