As the title indicates, I’m no bird photographer. I capture wildlife of any sort only if it’s convenient. When this hummingbird (I have no idea what kind) approached this coral aloe (aloe striata) at the Tuscon Botanical Garden in April '21 I snapped a few frames and hoped for the best as my settings were set for shooting plants. Then, of course, the bird buzzed off.
To my surprise when I uploaded the images and checked them out on my desktop after returning home I was really pleased with this one. It’s about as sharp as I could hope for on the bird’s head and eye.
Specific Feedback Requested
For the bird photographers in this community, what would you have done differently in composition, settings, capture, etc.?
Technical Details
Is this a composite: No
Nikon D810
Nikon 70-300mm @ 300 mm
f/10
1/1000 sec
ISO 1000
handheld
Lightroom processing
During the image preview stage of setting up this post, I think this image appears brighter than on my display in LR.
matt_lancaster_art
This looks a lot better in the large image. Good detail and focus on the head of the hummingbird. The colors are nice.
1 Like
This looks pretty good, Matt. Your settings aren’t bad for this situation. I tend to like wing blur in hummingbirds and 1/1000 is a pretty good shutter speed to show it well. You’re not likely to stop the motion without flash anyhow. f/10 at 300 mm should give you pretty good depth of field and it looks pretty good in the image. To my eye, the hummingbird’s face looks like it might be just slightly softer than some of the flowers, which makes me think the focus was still on a flower and the f/10 bought you enough depth of field to pull off the shot. Normally, when I shoot hummingbirds, I’ll use single point AF and try to put it on the eye (or at least the head).
The most difficult thing I find with hummingbirds in relatively uncontrolled conditions, is to get them against a fairly clean background. Normally, I’ll set up my trusty three-legged stool and a tripod and set back at minimum focal distance from the nearest flowers and wait for them to come and select one with nothing near behind it.
2 Likes
Thank you, @David_Schoen and @Dennis_Plank. Great information, Dennis - that’s just the kind of feedback I was hoping for.
