Some Success With A Hummingbird

 1/3200 | f/8 | ISO 800

1/2000 | f/8 | ISO 800

Yesterday morning I spent some time, as I had hoped, photographing the hummingbirds that are in my yard right now. A month or so ago, I attached this lichen covered stick to the top of the feeder pole hoping that the hummingbirds would see it as a good place to stand watch over the feeder as they rested. Sure enough this female Ruby-throated has been coming to my garden for a few weeks now and I think claimed it as her own! She will stand guard on this stick and chase away any other hummingbirds that come along. I am hoping that the male will show up tomorrow morning as I really want some images of him. I will be working to get some good landing shots also as the one I posted here is the best one I was able to get yesterday. So stay tuned for more, I hope you like these images!

Both images were taken with a tripod mounted Canon 7D and 400 f/5.6 lens. 

Minor adjustments and Topaz DeNoise applied to background only on both images.

click images to view larger size.

Long Time No Post - Great Egret

1/800 | f/8 | ISO 160

It has been a very long time since my last post here, it seems like Summer is always keeping me away from photography. The Summer months are always busy leaving me little time to go out in search of new or familiar subjects to photograph and whenever I did find myself with a free day or afternoon, the 100 plus degree weather would keep me from wanting to spend any time outdoors. Thankfully the Summer is over, September is here and surprisingly the weather in Texas has already cooled off significantly and an upcoming family vacation to Acadia National Park has me very excited about the Fall season. Here is a image that is not unique or original by far, but it is basically the first decent image I have captured since about June. Since then, I have switched from my Canon 100-400 lens to using a Canon 400 5.6 lens. I am excited to be using this lens which has much better Auto Focus capabilities than my 100-400 (though I already miss having IS) and am looking forward to putting it to the test this fall. Hummingbird migration is in full swing now and I have 2 female Ruby-throats and one male visiting my yard right now, previously I had a male and female Black-chinned as well, but they seem to have moved on. The hummingbirds have been very uncooperative thus far, but I am going to try them again tomorrow morning. 

Wish me luck and I promise that I will try to update this blog more often!

click image to view larger size.