Ruby-throat Hummingbird

This little hummingbird (a female, I believe) let me get right up close. I was probably ten feet away from her, shooting in plain sight.

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Nice, SI.

These are of a male ruby-throated hummingbird. Getting close to them is routine, because they are bold birds. Especially if you hold still. I put up a perch near my hummer feeder and position myself in plain view two inches farther away than my 100-400L minimum focus distance (a bit under six feet), and can shoot that way pretty often.

There's no reason, with the sophisticated autofocus these days, that poor vision should result in poor focus, because the lens/camera do the work, and are quite precise. Are you manually focusing for some reason? I didn't see that you were using a 2x TC, which would require manual focusing with that lens and body.

If you're using a 1.4 TC, that's a total aperture of f5.6, which the 400D should autofocus.

If you are autofocusing, I would guess it's a technique issue. At wide open apertures and close distances to the subject, depth of field can be razor thin, and putting the focus point on the primary center of interest (in birds and animals, usually the eye), can be vital. Often, people focus on the bird's breast or side, and that can, depending on the bird's pose and angle, produce an OOF head/eye.

If the subjects are fairly far away and you're cropping to achieve these closer looks, than I'd say you may also have a technqie issue. Which focus mode are you using, and you don't show us your shutter speed, either.

The shots with poor focus were taken in low-light conditions. I was using tv mode to keep my shutter speed up with that long focal length. I think I was simply negligent in not changing my focus point to center. Now that I realize that, I've pretty much answered my own question.

I usually shoot full manual to force myself to learn, but I think I focus too much on proper exposure and not enough on things like focus.

Thanks for making me think about that for a minute. As a novice, I'm usually caught up in the moment, trying to get every shot possible, instead of taking the time to make the most of the shots that could really amount to something.

SI, no prob.

If the light was poor, the contrast was probably poor, and autofocus thrives on contrast. In low contrast situations it can hunt a bit before locking in, and sometimes the shutter will trip before total focus is achieved.

Another tip is to choose one-shot focus mode unless the subject is moving around a whole lot. Al servo is a great mode, but only in its place, and perched birds are generally best captured in one-shot. Unless I know I'm going to have different needs, I use the center focus point and focus on the eye, locking focus by keeping the shutter button pressed half way and recomposing before tripping the shutter.

With practice, you can make this work very quickly.

steve is riight on his expalinations. there is one other factor that causes a problem with hummers.

when there is a sharp contrast, as in these shots, the camara af on multiple points would focus on the branch as it is easier to find. with the dof it will leave the bird itself soft. going to single point does not always help as the bird is smaller than the focusing point(square) and it will still focus on what it sees the best. a bird the size of your thumb or pinky at 50 feet is hard for any af

in this situation i tend to take bursts, as with the natural movement of the camera, even if on a tripod, 1 or 2 out of 30-40 will usually be very good good. sometimes more. throw away the ones that are soft.

also, as steve mentioned , try to make sure the servo is off , as anything is it sees move(and hummers do that ) will cause almost imperceptable searching on the focus.

hummers are very tolerant birds and get used to you very easily. i was standing under one of my feeders this morning and a hummer checked out the top of my bald head for 30 seconds or so. it is a it is a special joy to be able to feel the wind off such a tiny pair of wings.

Terry, good reminder on the burst mode. I do that all the time. It's so routine for me, in fact, that I forgot to even remember that I do it so I could point it out.