I’m determined to get better photos of “my” hummingbirds this year, so I’m moving the feeder closer to where I sit on the porch, and vice versa. So far I’m two arm lengths away with my camera on a tripod right behind me, using a remote shutter button, live view shooting to reduce the camera’s noise, a 1/800 shutter speed, and an 18-55 mm lens zoomed fully in to 55mm. I’m going to have to play more with the camera settings, but here are the best results of the past two days, selected from about 120 mostly rapid burst pictures. All of these are cropped way down with some adjustments to exposure, and color enhancements, in Photoshop.
There are 3 birds who frequent my feeder, presumably a mom and two new hatchlings. They consume half a liter of nectar from two feeders in about 5 days.
Notice the difference in the wing positions in these two shots. In the one on the left they are as you would expect from a bird. In the photo on the right, the bird has them rotated from the shoulder 90 degrees vertically and is flying backwards. “Normal” birds cannot do this.
These birds love to play. I assume Mom is the one on the perch, but that’s just a guess.
