First hummingbird pictures of the year...CC welcome

I haven't done much bird work in a long while so if anyone can give me some tips for shooting hummingbirds that would be great.

I'm using a 300mm f4 lens stopped down to around 5.6-8 with a 430ex flash and diffuser. Shot from a tripod with a remote shutter.

I have been refining my setup for the past 3-4 days and after around 120 shots here are the best results so far. Any tips would be great.

HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'text/html' | Byte size: ZERO

HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'text/html' | Byte size: ZERO

HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'text/html' | Byte size: ZERO

HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'text/html' | Byte size: ZERO

I don't shoot many hummingbirds, so no tips from me. These look very fine to me, great color, detail, poses and Background. Keep doing what you're doing, they look great. You might try putting up a natural perch or branch near the feeder, so you can get shots without the feeder.

Beautiful shots

Thanks for the comments. I'm looking into setting up an area where there are more "natural" perches. As opposed to just the feeder. The only problem is that currently the 2 hummingbirds that frequent the feeder seem to sit very high up in the trees. My yard has several big tress and most of the branches are 15-20+ feet off the ground so getting a shot of them that isn't looking straight up at their underside might be difficult.

Also, I'm having difficulty getting the wings to freeze. So unless the bird is perching the wings exhibit bad ghosting. My 1st posted shot is by far the best I could get with the wings extended.

Any tips would be appreciated.

Wow, these look great! Thanks for sharing!

I can't help you with freezing the wings because I don't use flashes to photograph Hummingbirds but as far as the perch remove the plastic ones that came with the feeder and place a stick right above the pole (or whatever) you have the feeder mounted to....attach the stick (the smaller the branch the better) to it. Most Hummingbirds will tend to land before hitting the feeder (at least mine do) so having something for them to perch on near the feeder may help.

My feeder doesn't have perches and the birds would fly away and sit high in the other tree's like your seeing. So i did (as Duane suggested) cut a branch and tied it to the pole my feeder is hanging from. It took 2-3 weeks before i saw a bird on it. Now it's there all the time, gaurding the feeder from the others.

Oh yeah, Nice sharp shots!

Duane N wrote in post #10733987
I can't help you with freezing the wings because I don't use flashes to photograph Hummingbirds but as far as the perch remove the plastic ones that came with the feeder and place a stick right above the pole (or whatever) you have the feeder mounted to....attach the stick (the smaller the branch the better) to it. Most Hummingbirds will tend to land before hitting the feeder (at least mine do) so having something for them to perch on near the feeder may help.

Man I feel dumb...I can't believe I didn't think of that! Great tip, I will have to rig something up tomorrow when I get home from work

Thanks!