A Flash of Hummingbird

Hummer, with flash and cropping

Hummingbirds are turning out to be the bane of my photographic existence. I don't know how many times I've encountered one of these tiny little beauties and completely failed to get even a remotely decent picture.

First off, they're small. Very small. Tiny even.

Second, they're quick. Even though one of their most remarkable characteristics is they're ability to hover in the air, hummingbirds don't hover very often, usually flitting from place to place in rapid movements.

Third, hummingbirds rarely land and rest. At least when I'm around.

And fourth, hummingbirds are skittish little things so that any attempt to get even a little bit closer with your camera makes them fly off into the distance.

So I end up trying to take them from at least twenty feet away so as to avoid scaring them. That forces me to use a long zoom (they're about two inches tall, remember) which makes simply getting them in the view finder difficult.

I try to keep the shutter speed as high as possible, in order to try to freeze their speedy wings, but also need to keep the aperture small so that the depth of focus remains good in case they move.

The hummingbird in context

And then, of course, there's that ruddy autofocus which, at twenty feet, is more likely to find the pole to the left of the bird or the leaves down below than the hummer itself. Ugh.

So last night, we're out in our backyard having dinner with some visiting friends and a little hummingbird shows up at our honey suckle bush. We get our cameras and try, try, try to get some decent shots.

The fact that daylight was fading proved both a curse and a blessing. A curse because it meant there was little light to work with, forcing shutter speeds down and apertures wide. A blessing because, well, it actually convinced me to try shooting on the Olympus' automatic settings, using the built-in flash.


I'd never thought of doing that before but, surprise surprise, it worked pretty well. These are the best hummingbird photos I've ever taken. Not that I'm saying much with that but still...

323 - That little leaf...

I love the little leaf that sits on the glove. I didn't put it there, honest. I just think it's a perfect adornment for this very bright red garment.

I also think the white tags issuing from the mouth of the glove are funny: they're almost as big as the glove itself. And they add an interesting swath of white to the shot.

The other thing that I notice about this photograph is the depth of focus. The fingertips of the glove are not quite crisp while the leaves in the background are quite fuzzy. I think the effect is nice but now I wish I had flipped the Olympus to manual and opened the aperture up even further. That would have shortened the focus more, making the leaves just a blur in the background. But, still, I'm happy with the colours, the composition and that little leaf.

Day 280 - Finding fall in Fredericton

This is the best I could do in trying to find fall in downtown Fredericton. For some reason, I thought the colours would be everywhere but, instead, I found only patches of brilliance in some trees.

With the wind blowing quite strongly and a blanket of clouds still in the sky, the trick with this photograph was keeping the shutter speed high enough to freeze the moving leaves (1/100th or faster) while still keeping at least a decent depth of focus, all the while making sure I was getting enough light into the camera.

No easy task, I tell you. Once I got that all puzzled out (to be honest, I just waited for one of the brief moments of sun), I had to decide again how close to get to the subject. In this case, I decided I should keep the angle fairly tight, to give some detail in the leaves and show clearly the contrast in colour between the green and the red. I actually think it turned out quite well.

Day 263 - Still life with a tea pot

Can you see the airbrushing I did on this photograph? Top right corner? I've never used this feature on iPhoto before. It's quite cool.

I took this photo at a restaurant in downtown Fredericton because I liked the way the tea pot looked on the reflective plastic cover of the table, with the the pattern on the table cloth adding interest, the water glass nearby and the medley of browns in the background. What I didn't expect was for my friend's chin to show up in the photo. So, I airbrushed it out.

This picture is another example of one of my favourite techniques wherein I set the camera on the table in a dimly-lit room and then adjust the shutter speed to a very slow level to ensure proper exposure. I keep the aperture as small as possible (f8) to ensure depth of focus but keep the shutter open for two seconds or more.

I like the warmth and depth of the colours that this technique creates. In this case, the tea pot glistens and the blue in its floral patterns comes through strongly.

Day 255 - That takes the cake

An exercise in focus and perspective, this shot of a piece of cake at a recent celebration at my place of work is one tasty photograph.

Once again, I tried to work with the available light and the depth of focus to create interest in this close up of a piece of cake on a paper plate with a plastic fork. I'm surprised with the result, which I think gives a vivid depiction of the piece in the foreground but also a feeling for just how many pieces there were arranged on this table.

To my surprise, similar shots taken with the flash were not as interesting: with both focus and light in its favour, the central chunk of cake was too dominant. The other slices, which were both out of focus and much darker, lost all importance in the shot.

Day 215 - Nose to Nose to Nose

A joyous gathering of golden doodles this afternoon in our back yard.

Today, long-time friends Marlee and Riley (centre and left) made a new pal in Maple (right), a two year-old doodle who has just moved into the neighbourhood with her family. Apparently, Maple has a body and hair like Riley but a temperament like Marlee (shy and fearful of new people).

It took the new pup only a short time to find her role among the two older dogs: she's the playful youngster who gets away with things. To a point. Then Marlee has to put her in her place!

The photograph itself is evidence of the challenges you face when you have the low-light conditions of a deeply cloudy day and the non-stop movement of dogs as your subject. In order to get enough light into the camera, you have to sacrifice both shutter speed (with the result that moving objects can become blurred) and aperture (which means that your depth of focus is very narrow). Hence, Marlee and Riley are both a little bit out of focus: Marlee because she's beyond the depth of focus and Riley because, well, Riley never stops moving.

Day 199 - White bobbles and roasted tomatoes

I had to play with the focus to get this photograph of roasted tomatoes on a white platter. The Olympus' autofocus function wanted to find the nearest object (the white porcelain bobbles that rim the platter) so I had to force it to see the tomatoes, hold the focus there, and then move into position for the perspective of the picture.

Then, of course, there was the challenge of adjusting the exposure to get enough light on the subject. Instead of slowing the shutter, however, I opened the aperture to enhance the light, thus also creating the very short depth of field, which limits the focus to just the closest of the tomatoes.

It seems such a simple shot but it was devilishly difficult to take. I'm very pleased with it, though, since I think it is actually quite stunning in beauty and fairly fascinating in composition. Can you guess what provided the patterned background?

Day 165 - Out of my depth (of focus)

Back to Scott's Nursery for this photograph of a massive display of herb plants. Taken under very low light conditions, this shot shows depth of focus in stark terms.

With very little light (natural or artificial) inside the greenhouse on a cloudy day, I slowed the shutter speed down as far as I could while still eliminating the shake of my hand from the shot (so 1/60th of a second). Even then, I was forced to open the Olympus' aperture up as wide as it would go (I think it was f3.2) to get enough light into the camera.

The wide aperture meant that my depth of focus was very short, as you can see from the photo. The first row is out of focus, the second and maybe the third are crisp, then the rest of the rows fading into the background are also out of focus. It's a neat effect but it's also interesting evidence of how the available light can impact the kind of photo you can take.

Day 149 - Sitting on the fence

I'm trying to train myself to look for interesting photographs in places and situations that just don't seem to promise much. To find beauty in squalor, so to speak.

Okay, maybe not quite squalor, but you catch my drift.

When I saw this battered old fence, losing the battle against the bushes behind it, I thought I'd found exactly what I've been looking for.

Then it became a question of how to photograph it: go in close or pull way back; include just the fence and the fern or put it into a context; focus on the first couple of slats or try to ensure the entire line of pickets is crisp and clear.

I'm not sure if I should have included the baby-blue wall in the left-hand side of the frame. I like it, to be sure, but I wonder if the photo would be more effective with just the fence and the bush. The focus question introduces, once again, the limitations of my Olympus, since I just can't make the aperture so wide and the shutter speed so fast to create the kind of shortened depth of focus that I would want to get. Still, I'm quite happy with the photograph. It makes me feel quite serene, for some reason.

Day 129 - Driftwood Art

Sometimes, great photos just present themselves to you. On my recent visit to Mactaquac to check out the flood waters, I spent some time on the shore of the basin below the dam. It's packed with stones and drift wood, making for all kinds of interesting shots.

In this one, the gnarled roots and branches of a long-fallen tree create the image of some kind of petrified monster, long dead, its body hurled up on shore. I tried all kinds of different framing effects for the shot and played with the depth of focus but I ended up choosing this one: a fairly traditional frame (with the trunk dead centre) and a medium-range depth of field so that the background is not completely blurred but not sharp either.

I love the dramatic light caused by the still rising sun coming in from the right of the frame and I think the driftwood has a character all of its own.