There is a special time when critters like to come out, just before sunrise and right after sunset. This light is incredibly soft, non-directional, and nearly shadowless. It is also mostly blue. That color cast, cold color cast can either be a plus or a minus depending on the story you want to tell about your subject. In this case, it’s a minus.
There is one odd thing about my vision, I see that blue color cast when I’m out shooting. Real old training from the days of film and using CC filters. When I see this, I tend to change my White Balance in camera to get the photo right with that click (In this case setting it to 8200k). That’s because when the image comes up in PhotoMechanic, I want to see the correct image, not the image before it need to be corrected.
If you move the slider back and forth above, imagine if all you saw the “cold” photo, a whole bunch of them in your image browser. What would your opinion of those “blue” images? Now move the slider to the “warm” shot in the camera correct image. How do you feel now about that photo, a whole browser full of cute Bambis?
While you have the twilight blues when you’re shooting, there is no reason why you have to have them when you look at those images in your browser. The call is all yours :-)
Photographing hummers is a favorite pastime of mine, one I don’t get to do often enough. There are some great images out there waiting for us all and I want to pass along what I’ve gleaned in the hopes you to get taken with the little jewels. The video covers the biology, technology, and shooting strategies I’ve picked up over the years leading me to my greatest success so far, but not to my best. I hope you take what I have provided and run with it, creating even better photographs of hummers you share with the world!
Broad-billed Hummingbird captured by D6 / 180-400VR / 2x SB-5000
Hummers are just fun to watch! Their speed, their flying, their character, and the way they think every feeder belongs to just them. And apparently, they have this “possession” complex right from the start. Here, an immature Broad-billed Hummer, not more than two months old is challenging an adult for the right to be at the feeder. Now they eat half their body weight each day in “sugar” to keep that 50 beats a second wings going. But you think they could eat less if they didn’t always fight over the feeder. And in this case, there were FIVE feeders, enough for everyone but no, this one was his, dang it!
Photographically, I love the challenge of getting more than one hummer in the frame. That is challenging enough but getting them both in focus, well, I’ve only gotten close so far to that goal (and you know what they say about close, atom bombs and the like). I shot this with the D6 / 180-400VR & 2x SB-5000 which is my dream rig. Photographing hummers for 40 years, this rig definitely made it the easiest and funniest experience. And I got closer to my photographic goals. I shot a video on the whole process I’ll be posting soon. Good times, good times.
Broad-billed Hummingbird captured by D6 / 18-400VR / 2x SB-5000
These flying jewels can entertain us for hours on end and all they are doing is, eating! In the summer down in Arizona on the border, there is a special canyon where the hummers come by the hundreds to the feeders consuming half their body weight in a day on just nector. If you sit yourself down as I have with a D6 / 180-400VR / 2x SB-5000 and you’re lucky, you’ll get a shot of two of this activity to take home with you. It’s actually not easy, takes time and patience but well, it’s just about one of the funniest thing I know of in wildlife photography!
Photographing nesting birds is a really entertaining, informative, and rewarding past time! You have to be on top of your game to safeguard the nest and come away with the photograph. This extensive video goes through the biology, technology and combining it to get the shot. It’s a twenty-minute video so I cover it all thoroughly so you can be successful you’re first time out. Enjoy!
I was literally sitting there with my Bins up to my eyes trying to figure out what the heck the bird was across the field at The Ranch when Sharon said, “What are you looking at?! “There’s our first fawn!” I put the bins down to see our first White-tailed Deer fawn had just wlked up in front of us forty feet away and was beginning to nurse! Bambi was drawn from a White-tailed Deer fawn which is why we call them Bambis and it was so cute! This was the first time I’d ever had the opportunity to get glass on one, so off I dashed!
White-tailed Deer captured by D6 / 180-400VR
The D6 / 180-400VR is always left set up at The Ranch because there are always critters about it. We’d seen the mom go off into the sage on our hillside earlier that morning and wondered if today was the day. It was now late evening when she emerged with her new offspring. With camera in hand, I snuck through the house trying to get the shot. The windows I could see the pair through were closed and screens were still in place (no long I might add) so I headed to the garage side door and slowly opened it. It had a squeak (no more, thanks WD40) so I went real slow. I raised the D6 to my eye and squeezed off a couple of frames just before it stopped nursing. It wasn’t the best shot, not thrilled with the background nor the position of the mom’s ears but it broke the jynx, I now have my own Bambi photos. We have a couple more pregnant White-tailed and one Mule Deer doe walking The Ranch show if I’m lucky, I’ll do better later. Going to be fun trying!!!!
