Hummingbird

[Old Timer]

Tab as I said in my earlier post I really like your images. I have a couple of question if you don't mind. Are you using auto focus or do you pre focus to a spot? At what range are you shooting and is the camera mounted on a tripod? Also interested in your metering, spot, matrix or center? Just trying to pick your brain here. My one attempt at the hummingbird was not nearly as sucessful. Here is an example.

[tab]

Thanks for the comments. I'm shooing about 12-15' away. The birds are quite timid and fly off in a hurry when I try to get closer. I've taken some prior to these with an AFS 80-200mm but the birds get lost in frame very easily. I don't use a tripod only because the birds move so quickly from flower to flower I couldn't track it fast enough. I have used a monopod before but not with any of these shots. I autofocus then lock the focus in until the bird moves to another flower. It stops the lens from searching when there are plants in front of or in back of the bird. I usually switch between matrix and center weighted metering depending on the background and shadows. The dragonfly was center weighted for that reason while the first hbird in the plants was matrix but the second was center weighed. I like to stop the wings or severly slow down the motion like you did with the one approaching the feeder. That's why I try to shoot a very fast shutter. Which also means that I have to shoot at a larger aperture or/and faster ISO. Here's 3 more: the first settings where the wings are barely noticable was shot at an iso of 400, SP, MM, 1/320 f9.5 using a AFS300 with a 1.4 teleconverter for a focal length of 420mm. I was probably 12' away. The second were:Shutter Priority, Matrix Metered, ISO 320, f4 1/1250 . The third one has the same settings.

[evatgirl73]

I think they're all very cool, I know I would not have been able to capture one as great as you have here! I love the dragonfly pic as well, very cool. Technically I think these are all good, I would personally crop some of them closer to the bird but that's it. Great catch!

Take care,
Eva