My dear friend gave me a hummingbird feeder for my birthday in May. We had been trying to attract these little beauties to our yard all summer, and eventually won the patronage of two female ruby-throated hummingbirds.
Photographing our regulars, however, proved frustrating in natural light. I could only get the iridescent green back feathers in full sun, and the bird was usually too far for me to get much detail, even with the 600mm lens on a crop factor camera. Capturing the birds in flight was futile, as I couldn’t get enough light to use a shutter speed that would allow me to get a sharp picture.
It was time to use the flash. I’ve read different views on the subject, but the Cornell Lab of Ornithology says that there is no evidence at this time that the flash will harm the birds and flash photography is a longstanding practice in documenting birds. http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/bp/guidelines
Based on my observations, at least one of the birds is frankly curious about the flashes and will hover more around the feeder and flashes, even examining the equipment through the windows. The other bird seems a bit more anxious to dodge the paparazzi. When the flashes go off, she might leave, but lately has been playing a bit of a game where she drinks and then pulls out of the range of the lens. I try not to shoot when the birds are actually drinking, and I usually give them a chance to fill up a bit before the photo session starts.
This is one of my early images, and still one of my favorites. I didn’t like seeing the feeder in the photos, so I filled the top of a salvia with the same solution we put in the feeders. I stuck the flower in the hole of the feeder. While I loved how it looked, the cut flower wilted quickly, and I didn’t have enough salvia blooms to keep replacing it. Worse, the wilted flower was dripping sugar water, which was attracting ants. Besides, the birds didn’t like the cut flower nearly as much as the feeder, and started to ignore the feeding station in favor of the salvia in the background. I pursued other ways to hide the feeder.
I tried hiding the feeder behind a potted geranium. In the previous photo, the pot of salvia wasn’t big enough to fill the background, so there was a lot of dark area that made the pictures look as if they were taken at night in a spotlight. To get a more natural look, I constructed a new background by pinning branches to our trellis.
I thought it looked more natural, but the bird was almost the same color as the background.
I did many more shots with variations of geraniums and salvias, but I was getting a little tired of green and red, so I tried using colored mat board for a background and cut some flowers from other places in our yard.
The effect isn’t as natural, but the bird certainly stood out well, and color scheme was a bit more serene.
I tried using a blue gel on my background flash to deepen the background color.
It turned the daylight blue into more of a dramatic twilight blue.
Since we were abandoning the natural look anyway, I tried an even more dramatic color scheme.
This time, I used a deep orange gel on a white mat board.
With the simpler backgrounds, it is easier to see small details, like the hummingbird’s tongue sticking out as she approaches.
Since I have gels in many different colors, I have lots of color schemes I could still try, but hummingbird photography is awfully time-consuming, so I should probably feed the kids and do some housework at some point.
Gorgeous photos, Nancy! And well-deserved because you worked so hard for them. The colors are amazing—especially on that last shot. I have so much to learn from you.