Tony over at Evil Ganome inspired me to find these hummingbird photos after he posted a shot of a little friend he spotted in his garden. These pics were taken about 10 years ago when I was an apartment dweller in Irvine, CA and I used hanging baskets of flowers to brighten up my balcony. I put in fuschia and spider plants, and supplemented the color with the red sugar water in the hummingbird feeders.
I was amazed at the birds; how close they came to the window and how close I could get to them if I got to the window first and stood still. I meticulously cleaned the window of the sliding glass door, went out and bought a tripod, and cranked up the shutter speed on my Nikon EM to capture these shots.
I shot two rolls of 36 with four different lenses and these are the best. A couple years after this, I purchased a Nikon film scanner and scanned all of my negatives into TIFF files at 4000 dpi. I have a ton of B&W that I've shot from various cities — you may have seen some of them here on this blog from Washington D.C. and London.
Most of the photos on the blog are shot with my little Sony 3.2 Megapixel digital camera at 72 dpi. I'm considering a 10 Megapixel Nikon D80 digital SLR so I can use all of the lenses that I've invested in for the EM. I'm going to wait for Christmas to see if the prices drop.
In the first two photos, I love how the wings look in stop action. Don't miss the bird hiding up on top of the feeder. The hummer's pose in the last photo reminds me of an Olympic male gymnast doing an iron cross on the rings.
*
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Hummers
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Aside from being let down by the bait-and-switch employed in the title of this post, I loved the pictures. For as fast as those little birds move the shots sure are crisp.
Were you using a tripod, or have you stopped drinking coffee?
Sorry. It's late, and I missed that part about the tripod.
I'm impressed. I was just lucky to have my camera ready when my little pal dropped by to check out the salvia. They really are amazingly fearless! You can get quite close to them, relatively speaking. The goldfinches on the other hand require a telephoto lens. I need to get a better camera.
Great shots! When we first moved into our house 30+ years ago, we planted some red Cannis right under our kitchen window. They grew high enough that the blooms were window height. I used to love seeing the humming birds there!
I LOVE hummingbirds! They are little miracles of nature! How amazing their wings are.
Post a Comment