PHOTOGRAPHY BLOG

See the latest gallery of Best Photos of the Month - July #2, 2008.

Hummingbird photography is addictive!! Stimulates your creativity, not only challenges you but takes you to great places, and hopefully rewards you with some great pics. Almost everyone likes Hummingbirds. They’re so small and fast moving, it’s hard to get a good look at them. When you show pictures of hummingbirds, people are impressed, because they can see all of the wonderful details. I thought it would be great to share how best to try and set up for hummingbirds so you can produce results you can be happy with.

So what does it take to capture a hummingbird in flight in detail? First and foremost HUMMINGBIRDS , mainly patience, and a little setup and lastly a feeder to attract them.

GEAR- any camera, lenses will depend on the working distance your birds will allow you, norm 8-10 ft, normally anywhere from 200-400mm. Dont need fast glass, ie. f2.8 as you are stopping down your glass from f-8 to f13 depending on exposure. I use my 300mm + 1.4TC on a tripod with gimbal head.

Flashes- Hummingbirds wings can beat up to 80 times per second, this produces their signature hum. To the naked eye and you camera—the wings are just a blur. One of the first questions I’m asked is what shutter speed I use to stop this super-fast movement. The real answer is that the motion is frozen with high speed electronic flash, not by a fast shutter speed on the camera….. full article.

I just got back from 1 month of hiking in the Alps with the Eos 1Ds Mark III and a 40 D as a backup. I used to use a 1Ds Mark II and a 1D Mark II, but the 1Ds Mark II was stolen (it was insured) and I didn’t want to lug the extra weight of a separate Mark II body without the compatibility of battery systems. Buying a 2nd Mark III wasn’t in the budget, thus the lighter 40D. My primary purpose of shooting is for a book I am researching on the best treks in the world. I have a report on the treks (not edited yet) and some small photos on http://www.greattreks.com/greattreks/TopTen/TopTen01.asp. Go to Tour de Mont Blanc and the Haute Route for the photostory. Pics are small, I will provide slightly large images on links below. My photographs were more documantarian than usual, but I was focused on my book rather than straight artistic style.

I was very interested to see how the Mark III would stack up to the Mark II and if the 40D sacrifice was a mistake. Here’s my anecdotal report.

The Mark III was a tank. I hike almost 400 kilometers and climbed a total of 20,000 vertical meters. It was 23 days of hiking of which 4 were horrific weather wise. I would say I had the Mark III out of my bag 95% of the time. The exceptions being one time during really hard rain and a few times where I was concerned for my wife or my own safety. It was a tank. With that said I had 0 dust on the sensor problems. This is a huge advantage over my previous experience with the Mark II. When trekking one doesn’t have the luxury to check how clean one’s images are. I was amazed that I had no issues whatsoever …. full article.