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Posts tagged ‘hummingbird’

Hummingbird Saved by Textures

Two friends and I hiked to a spring high up in the McDowell Mountains this past week and as we approached, we were delighted to observe a hummingbird gathering fluff from cattails for her nest. I instantly raised my camera but in my excitement, forgot to double check the settings. The image was greatly underexposed. I waited for about 30 minutes but she never came back. I almost deleted this image but then remembered that texture blending can do wonders with underexposed images and they did! At least it is good enough for a small print and a wonderful memory 🙂

You Never Know!

While searching for a photo of the day in the desert this morning, I noticed this Hummingbird following me and I was sure I heard “I want to be on your blog today!” 🙂 He was flitting back and forth among the branches of this Desert Hackberry so it was impossible to keep focus so I did what photographers did before auto focus and that’s “pre-focus”. I just manually focused on the center branch tip and kept my finger on the shutter knowing he would fly into focus at some point. You never know what you’ll get but you won’t get anything if you don’t try, right? (Canon 60D, Sigma 18-250mm lens @ 250mm. ISO 200, 1000th sec at f/5.6)

My Hummer Buddies

Hummingbirds are very curious and boy are they fearless! Within minutes of going out to photograph in my yard, there will be a Hummer inches of my head and flitting around me for a few seconds as if to be checking me out. I think they like my hat 🙂 Whatever the reason, I love it. That particular morning, I was experimenting taking photos of cactus blooms with my 300mm lens. Right next to the cactus is an Aloe and almost the instant I started to shoot, this guy came in and started feeding. Unfortunately, my 300mm lens only focuses to 3 feet which meant I had to back up to take its photo…hence no tail.
Captured May 1st with 300mm lens. ISO 400, 1/600th sec at f/5

Schultz Pass Road

Calling all Wildflower lovers!!! Because of heavy snows, this is a banner year for Wildflowers in Flagstaff so it is well worth the drive. I recommend going up Schultz Pass Road to the Sunset Trailhead. Once there, look for the Shultz Tank trail (or something like that). It’s about a mile hike or so but you’ll see flowers all along the trail. The Tank should be your goal, though, as I have never seen so many varieties of flowers! This Hummingbird literally flew into my shot 🙂