Yep, Alvin is back, we call him Alvin II since they don’t live that long. With the extreme drought here in the Eastern Sierra (all of California), our meadow has gone to seed a solid month early. That means no flowers for the hummers so our feeders are getting sucked dry in just days! Sitting here typing, I can see 11 hummers buzzing around the feeders. And as usual, a Allen’s Hummingbird has decided that the best feeder is all his. This is who we call Alvin II. It also means time to photograph the captive audience.
With the meadow gone to seed early, the hummers dependence on the feeders is more intense then norma making photography really darn easy! As usual, I have selected a nice manzanita twig for a perch, stuck in a Justin Clamp on a Nano stand about 2 1/2 feet from the main feeder. That’s where Alvin II hangs his hat as he defends “his” feeder. The perch is set up with the background in mind! If I’m totally going to manipulate the situation, I’m going to do the best I can. The perch is parallel to the sensor so where Alvin II lands, he’ll be in focus. And when I see the background with no direct light, it’s when I shoot.
I have set up about five feet away the 300PF connected to the D4s with the WR-R10/WR-T10/WR-A10 Wireless Remote to trigger it all. The lens is set to Manual Focus and prefocus just a breath in front of the perch. I us manual focus because there are times when Alvin II will smoke my arse, tricking me into firing the camera when he’s not in the frame. When that happens in in autofocus, the camera will look for him, not find him and start searching. I loose precious shooting time when that happens, missing shots. I’ve raised the ISO to 800 shooting Aperture Priority at f/8. Now with the weird “light” we have with the smoke from the fires, when I shoot is when the color of the light has the least amount of “fire” tent. So my weekend enjoyment, well nearly everyday, will be sitting in my chair, margarita in hand pushing the button when Alvin II pushes my buttons. Ahhhhh life is good!