05.12.11
Annas (or Ruby-Throated) Hummingbird...in flight!
Here's a little story... =)
I received a comment on one of my photos today: "I have to say, for someone that has a self proclaimed love for birds, I did not see any, and I think I went back all the way to the beginning, where are your bird shots?" Now, this is taken out of context a bit. The user was very complimentary, and his question was quite fair. Where are my bird shots?? Hmmm... =/
I thought about this feedback and decided to do something about it. The truth is, I just don't come into contact with many birds in my daily life. However, maybe I just haven't been trying hard enough to find them. It doesn't help that my kit zoom lens is rather limited (18-100) and birds are hard to get up close to in nature. But, that is neither here nor there. A real photographer will find a way!
So, I jumped into my car with the D90 and headed over to Mast Park. It has lots of grass, flowers and trees. So, I thought, surely there will be some birds to photograph...well, there wasn't much. They were all very high in the trees and the photos I got aren't worth posting. I'm sure the hot cloudless weather and time of day didn't help (2:30pm).
Discouraged, I packed up my camera and started walking back to the car. When I got to the parking lot, I heard a distinctive sound. It was a sound that I had heard only last night on an awesome video about hummingbirds, called "PBS Nature: Hummingbirds, Magic in the Air." I removed my lens cap again and started looking around.
At first, I didn't see the little guy, he was moving so fast. But soon I spotted him, way up in the sky above a tree. He was doing the trademark mating dance!! I was so excited to witness this in real life. I started snapping away, zoomed in as far as I could go. It was nearly impossible to get good focus because of how fast he was moving, but I managed a decent one at last. This hummingbird would fly about 50 feet up and then divebomb at about 60 mph. According to the video, that's equivalent to 10 Gs!! ---> which is the speed at which fighter pilots black out. Yikes! How do these little birds do it??? Amazing.
Here is the video. If you want to see this mating dance that I'm talking about, skip to 26:10 http://video.pbs.org/video/1380512531/
I know this picture isn't great quality, but it was a wonderful experience. I'm satisfied for now. =D
@loztsoul Oh, ha ha. ;-) It wasn't that great of a photo, so I'm posting something else for today. That's why I put the hummingbird on photobucket. I'm hoping I can get a better hummer photo someday.
@kerristephens I just looked through your project and you have some amazing shots! Thanks for commenting on my discussion so that I could be introduced to your project.
Congrats! They can be a challenge to photograph, I had a lot of fun figuring out the right settings and finding the right spot to photograph my first in flight hummingbirds. Keep at it.
Yeah for you! I read on another board here that "shooting a hummingbird" is on lots of people's bucket lists. Well, at the moment I don't see how I would be able to do it but maybe I'll move to California some day and do nothing else...
Are you kidding, with your kit lens of 100mm, this is an outstanding shot, and yours will only get better. At first when you mentioned kit lens, I thought that you had the 55-200mm kit zoom, I have one of those, and it was decent, got me much closer, but my primary focus was on dance receitals and basketball, so I got the 70-300 and that seems to do the trick. I do not use the 55-200 anymore, you can buy them brand new for under $300, I do not know what your finances are but for a decent outdoor zoom shooting birds that will work. Since I do not use mine, I was thinking about putting it up on ebay or giving it to my daughter to use on her d3000, but she has recently lost interest in photography since she is really into her new hobby: boys!
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Annas (or Ruby-Throated) Hummingbird...in flight!
Here's a little story... =)
I received a comment on one of my photos today: "I have to say, for someone that has a self proclaimed love for birds, I did not see any, and I think I went back all the way to the beginning, where are your bird shots?" Now, this is taken out of context a bit. The user was very complimentary, and his question was quite fair. Where are my bird shots?? Hmmm... =/
I thought about this feedback and decided to do something about it. The truth is, I just don't come into contact with many birds in my daily life. However, maybe I just haven't been trying hard enough to find them. It doesn't help that my kit zoom lens is rather limited (18-100) and birds are hard to get up close to in nature. But, that is neither here nor there. A real photographer will find a way!
So, I jumped into my car with the D90 and headed over to Mast Park. It has lots of grass, flowers and trees. So, I thought, surely there will be some birds to photograph...well, there wasn't much. They were all very high in the trees and the photos I got aren't worth posting. I'm sure the hot cloudless weather and time of day didn't help (2:30pm).
Discouraged, I packed up my camera and started walking back to the car. When I got to the parking lot, I heard a distinctive sound. It was a sound that I had heard only last night on an awesome video about hummingbirds, called "PBS Nature: Hummingbirds, Magic in the Air." I removed my lens cap again and started looking around.
At first, I didn't see the little guy, he was moving so fast. But soon I spotted him, way up in the sky above a tree. He was doing the trademark mating dance!! I was so excited to witness this in real life. I started snapping away, zoomed in as far as I could go. It was nearly impossible to get good focus because of how fast he was moving, but I managed a decent one at last. This hummingbird would fly about 50 feet up and then divebomb at about 60 mph. According to the video, that's equivalent to 10 Gs!! ---> which is the speed at which fighter pilots black out. Yikes! How do these little birds do it??? Amazing.
Here is the video. If you want to see this mating dance that I'm talking about, skip to 26:10 http://video.pbs.org/video/1380512531/
I know this picture isn't great quality, but it was a wonderful experience. I'm satisfied for now. =D