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...

Day 362 - Another happy photographic accident

Add this one to the list of photographs that, at first glance, seem not to have turned out but then, when you look at them more closely, you find that they are better than you could ever have imagined (or planned).

This is Emily. She's skating at the Lady Beaverbrook Rink during one of its daily free skates. There's not much light. Emily is moving pretty quick. And the Olympus is having a mess of trouble adjusting for it all. I set it at the slowest shutter speed that wouldn't show the shake in my hand (1/60th of a second) and opened the aperture up as far as it would go.

It's a recipe for disaster and that's what, at first glance, I thought I had gotten, even after I worked on the picture in iPhoto. Emily is not in focus (the guy in the coat behind her is, however), the contrast is terrible, and there still isn't enough light. I was ready to discard it.

Then I looked at her face. The concentration on it. The peaceful concentration on the act of skating. And I realised that the fuzziness of the image, the low contrast and the darkness all add rather than detract from the effect of the shot. So I kept it. I showed it to Emily and asked her permission to post it here.

"As long as you don't mind me copying it onto my Facebook page," she said. No problem, Emily. Enjoy. And thanks for being a part of another happy photographic accident.

Day 354 - Needs no embellishment

This is a very simple photograph of the Fredericton walking bridge at night. With the Olympus on its trusty tripod, I set the aperture at f8 to get the best depth of focus possible, the shutter speed at (I think) 10 seconds to let in just enough light, and then pressed the release.

I could have slowed the shutter even further (to 15 seconds) but that would have allowed so much light into the lens that the photo would have looked almost like a day-time shot. I wanted darkness. I wanted the lamps on the bridge, and their reflections in the river, to stand out. And I wanted to be able to show only so much of the bridge's structure as would be allowed by the available light.

In other words, I wanted the photograph to show what my eyes could see while I stood there looking. I had never really thought about it before but, as amazing as our eyes are, we can't slow down their shutter speed the same way we can with a camera. And sometimes it's fun to use the camera's abilities to make a brighter photo. But other times, what our eyes see needs no such embellishment.

Day 353 - Affected by the available light

Still enjoying that moon! Here we are with a surprising photograph that provides a number of interesting layers, each affected differently by the available light.

With a tripod and a long exposure, I was able to get this image of the bare bushes at the bottom of the slope leading to the walking bridge, with the fullish moon shining down. I love the colours of the branches and the leaves in the foreground, made possible by the slower shutter speed. I am also pleased with the way the iron beams of the bridge lurk in the background, themselves somewhat red with rust. And I have to admit I am growing to like more and more the starburst pattern of the moon and the lights on the bridge, caused by the long exposure as well.

I trust you're not growing too tired of these night shots. I'm loving them. Now I'm just waiting for some snow to create an all-new late-day look.

Day 352 - A starry-eyed moon

Moonlight illuminates the St. John River, the Fredericton walking bridge and some nearby trees. I'm quite fond of this shot and not just because its composition was Patti's idea.

I'm pleased that I managed to find the right exposure levels to give some detail to the scene while still maintaining that night-time look.

Doesn't the moon look amazing? Like the sun, really. That's what I get for slowing the shutter down far enough to save the detail: the light from the almost-full moon becomes too powerful and creates the starry effect. I'm sure there are filters or other techniques to avoid this effect but I'm not interested. I quite like seeing the moon like this.

I forgot to mention yesterday that I am now in the final two weeks of this year-long photographic odyssey. I find that fact amazing as well. It seems like only yesterday that I posted my first picture and yet, at the same time, I feel like I've been doing this for ever.

Day 349 - Morning glorious

This photograph has NOT been tampered with. It came directly from the Olympus, with no enhancements, cropping or touch-ups of any kind. This is what the eastern sky looked like at 7:45 this morning.

Absolutely stunning. I can't think of any other words to describe it. What an amazing sky. Right outside our door. I stepped out on my way to work, looked up and saw this.

The challenge, as always, was to find the right camera settings. More light or less light? I placed the camera on the post of our porch railing, and then started fiddling with the aperture and shutter speed settings. I think this one is mid-range for both: probably an f5.6 with a shutter speed at 1/8th of a second or so. I didn't want to slow the shutter too far down for fear that the branches in the foreground would blur out, causing a distraction.

I took about 10 shots at different settings (and almost missed my bus). I have a couple that are lighter but that tends to bleed some of the drama from the colours. So I chose this one. And it's glorious.

Day 348 - Understated Christmas elegance

Hundreds if not thousands of Fredericton home owners love to decorate the houses for the holiday season. While many offer a profusion of lights in dozens of colours, some prefer the understated elegance of this lovely building. There's nothing technically special about this photograph. Other than a tripod and a 15-second exposure, it's basically a point and shoot image. Some scenes simply don't need any help to be truly beautiful.

Day 333 - The blurred brick wall

One theme I seem to be exploring of late in my photographs is the idea of different levels in the image, especially the simplest two: the foreground and the background.

There are a lot of decisions to be made when taking a photograph like this. You have to decided how to frame the shot, how close to get to the objects in the foreground and how much space to leave around them (on the sides and top and bottom). You have to choose the angle from which you take the photo (again, both from side to side and up and down) which will have an impact on what forms the background to the shot.

Once you've made those decisions, you have to choose whether you wish to have all elements in sharp focus (by prioritising a narrow aperture setting on the camera) or different levels of focus at different levels of the shot (by opening the aperture up and then compensating by speeding up the shutter). I had the aperture setting at its smallest (f8) with the shutter at 1/60th for the first picture I took of these lamps and the shot was boring: everything was in focus.

So then changed the aperture to f3.4, increased the shutter speed to 1/125th of a second and suddenly you've got this much more interesting image, where the finely focused lamps stand out against the interestingly textured but blurred brick wall.

Day 326 - Light falling on oak leaves

I have been fascinated with oak leaves for some time now, ever since I noticed that they cling to their branches well into the winter. In fact, I'm not even sure that they ever drop off. Maybe they just renew themselves each spring.

Fredericton is home to some pretty amazing oak trees, including this one that stands in front of the public library downtown. There are several more in my neighbourhood and, although their leaves don't seem to colour as vividly as do the maples, they still provide some interesting shapes and shades every fall.

Of particular interest to me in these photographs, however, is not so much the colour and shapes of the oak leaves but the difference the amount of light allowed into the camera makes in how vividly those colours come across. Simply by speeding up the shutter by a small amount, you really bring the leaves to life.

The upper photo was taken with the aperture at f8 and the shutter speed at 1/60th of a second. It is a bright shot and, on first glance, seems like the better of the two. But there is, in fact, too much light and the colour and detail of the leaves gets bleached out. The lower shot, taken at f8 and 1/100th of a second, is much darker. You lose the brick in the background but you gain vivid colour in the leaves themselves, especially the oranges and reds that are all but lost in the first picture. I think they're both nice pictures but I prefer the lower one, with its brilliant colours and darkened down background, over the upper one, which seems over-bright and bland by comparison.

Day 307 - Taking liberties with Her Majesty

New Brunswick's Legislative Assembly building dates from 1882 (even though its front wall features a prominent "1880" carving) and, according to the descriptive plaque in the foyer, is made of sandstone with a mansard roof and matching towers (see bottom photo). It is currently in the process of being refurbished, with the exterior work being done first.

I trust that, as part of that refurbishment, the tradespeople won't display the same lack of respect that the workers who installed security cameras and pigeon-proofing showed when they defaced this poor carving of the Queen that keeps watch on the building's front doors (see upper photo). Yes, that is actually pigeon wire sticking out of Her Majesty's crown!

This photograph was not as easy to take as it might at first appear. The carving is located inside the arch of the doorway, meaning there wasn't much light to work with. Since the Olympus' flash washed out the details on the face and crown, I had to figure out a way to get a decent exposure while not losing too much depth of focus nor adding too much shake. I have to admit, I cheated a bit. I kept the shutter speed at 1/60th while allowing enough of an aperture to keep focus throughout the shot.

In other words, I underexposed the image on site and then fixed the exposure on my trusty old iMac.

I was also forced, because of the harsh angle at which I took the picture, to rotate the image slightly so that the carving appears straight in the photo. Neat what you can do, isn't it?

The lower photo is of the building itself. You can't get far enough back from the front wall to take a photograph of the entire building with a nomral lens so I had to zoom way out and accept the distortion caused by the use of the shorter lens (somewhere close to 28mm). Unfortunately, you can't fix that on the iMac.

Day 305 - Jack says "Hi"

Happy belated Hallowe'en everybody. Believe it or not, this is the FIRST Jack'o'Lantern I have ever carved. He adorned our brand new front porch last night for the Hallowe'en festivities and we even got a compliment about him.

In order to get some shots of Jack lit from within by a candle, I got out my mini tripod and started taking shots at various aperture and shutter speed settings to see what would work best. Needless to say, as I fiddled with the camera, the evening darkness also grew denser so it turned into quite a challenge.

The top photograph is the first one I took. It's got an aperture of about f4.5 with a shutter speed around four seconds. It's a good, crisp picture but I wanted to see if the flickering flame of the candle could be more visually interesting with a smaller aperture and a longer exposure.

The lower shot was taken under much darker conditions and with a 15 second exposure. This resulted in a dark photo (no matter how long you made the exposure, there just wasn't much light) so that Jack's face stands out better but the slower shutter didn't seem to do much with the flickering flame. My guess is that the light from the candle was already diffused as it passed through the carved features of Jack's face, so that, even if the flame itself moved while the shutter was open, it made no difference to what the camera saw and captured. The question of course is: which photo do you like better?

Day 298 - Photographing the flame

Abstract art in low light. This is a photograph of the flame in the fire place, taken with a shutter speed of 1/80th of a second, much too fast according to the light meter but necessary to freeze the flame and avoid flaring.

With the fall upon us and night-time temperatures dipping below zero, our fire-place is starting to come into play on quiet evenings with friends. We're fairly new to the idea of fire-places but very much enjoying the experience. Not to mention the photographic opportunities it offers.

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 264 - The curved lines of chairs

I love the browns in this photograph. Just like yesterday's image, this picture was taken using a narrow aperture and a slow shutter speed to create depth of focus in a dimly lit dining room.

The browns just feel so deep and soft and I think the composition is quite lovely too. The slightly curved lines of the chairs work well with the straighter lines of the door frame to create a nice perspective to the shot while the gold in the table coverings adds just a hint of colour to an otherwise monochromatic photo. I'm surprised at how happy I am with this one.

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 189 - Black and white with a splash of blue

The contrast between subject and sky is so steep this photograph almost seems to have been taken in black and white.

I bracketed the shot to see what level of light would look the best. With the aperture as small as possible (f8) to enhance depth of focus, I played with the shutter speed to vary the amount of light that came through the lens. I wanted to have the choice between lighting the chair and deck properly and bleaching out the sky or lighting the clouds nicely and blacking out the objects in the foreground.

Guess which I chose.

I'm actually very pleased with this photograph. I like the dark shapes and the fact that you can see the lovely clouds around and through them. I'm even pleased that there are splashes of blue sky to the bottom and left of the frame, just to ensure you're not fooled into thinking it's a B&W shot.

Day 187 - A lonely sentry on a blistering day

Believe it or not, this photograph was taken today. It's a combination of elements from previous pictures that I stumbled upon during my lunch hour.

First, there's the wonderful fountain on the plaza in front of the Fredericton City Hall on Queen Street. I like the little dude, wrestling a fish, at the top of the fountain and I like the soothing sound of the water. Then there's the city hall itself, with its brick walls and stone steps. Of course, the photo has to include one of the neat street lamps as well.

The surprise is the red-coated figure standing stock-still below the street lamp: one of the soldiers from the changing-of-the-guard ceremony we went to the other day with our friends.

I'll say one thing: with temperatures pushing 30 degrees with an additional bonus for humidity, the young person must be broiling in that outfit.

I faced a challenge with this shot, photographically, because I wanted both depth of focus (and, therefore, a narrow aperture) as well as a fast shutter, to freeze the drops of water in mid-air. Unfortunately, even with the sun beating down, there wasn't enough light to do both. I ended up sacrificing speed for focus and ended up with a pretty nice shot.

Day 150 - Fish tales (or is that a serpent?)

I love this photo. There's so much going on, so much colour, and the little guy in the middle of the fountain seems to be battling his brains out to subdue the spitting beast.

The first truly brilliant, warm spring day here in Fredericton brought bright sunlight, dozens of noon-hour walkers and the return of the City Hall's weird and wonderful fountain. My goal in this case was to push the Olympus as far as I could to get a freeze-frame shot of the water drops. For a moment, the camera allowed me a shutter speed of 1/2000th of a second (at least I think that's what I saw on the little screen) and the photos at that speed are pretty amazing.

But this one, taken at 1/1000th, was by far the most interesting. I love the spout of water from the lower fountain on the left, the deep hues of the green bowl, the golden dude and the red brick in the background, and the thin jets of drops coming from the... is that a fish? or a serpent?

Day 142 - Higher than Niagara and just as dramatic

La Chute Montmorency, located just east of Quebec City along the north shore of the St. Lawrence River, is a water fall that dwarfs Niagara Falls in height and challenges it in splendour.

We visited the beautifully designed park that contains this natural wonder this morning and found the falls thundering at their mightiest, thanks to the high water levels this spring. The park allows you to get close to the falls at both the top and bottom of the cliff, meaning you can get soaked if you want while enjoying plenty of great views. I got a lot of great shots, including this one from a lookout at the top.

The challenge for me as a photographer, of course, involved not just getting the silly autofocus mechanism to find the rushing water but also to get the proper amount of light in the shot, since the light meter under-reads the light reflected by the water. If you go by the meter, the crashing water will be overexposed, without detail. I find you have to deliberately set the camera to allow in less light so that you see the individual ripples and water drops.

It's not so hard to do, however, since you want to push your shutter speed as high as possible (in this case, 1/1000th of a second) to freeze the action. The higher the shutter speed, the less light gets in. Problem solved and photograph improved.

Day 91 - Spring Flowers

Despite the fact that Fredericton is expecting to get more than 20 centimetres of snow today, I'm still firmly convinced (in a kind of desperate way) that spring is here.

Patti has supported this belief by bringing some beautiful cut spring flowers into the house: daffodils from the Cancer Society and tulips (a dutch treat) from the flower shop. Under her care, they have all burst into bloom at the same time, making our dining room a colourful, happy place.

These photographs are as close as I'm going to get to studio shots. To get these pictures, I moved the vase filled with daffodils into the light from the dining room window and even got out my tripod to steady the camera.

I took about thirty shots of the daffodils, trying different compositions and different camera settings. The shot I chose was one of two photographs that are exactly the same but for the size of the Olympus' aperture and the shutter speed.

With a larger aperture (f3.4) and a faster shutter speed (1/30th), I got a lovely shot wherein the burgundy curtains in the background were significantly blurred and the flower on the bottom right of the bunch was also slightly blurred; the shot I've posted, however, was taken with a much smaller aperture (f8) to increase the depth of focus and a slower shutter (perhaps 2 seconds). The curtain is still somewhat blurred but the increased depth of focus means the flower on the lower right is crisp.

The tulips were even more fun. I left them in the dark corner and ended up having to set the shutter anywhere between 8 and 15 seconds to get enough light. I love how rich and deep the colours turned out and I'm pleased with the composition of the shot. All in all, a very pleasing effort!