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Hummingbirds with OM 350mm f2.8 + Om 1.4TC

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Gary Blake

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Not much chance to shoot or post much lately.

Same old story - too many bills to pay and work to do.

Decided to set up an opportunity to multi task.

I set up a “blind” in my kitchen and a feeding station and roost outside to capture some hummingbirds. I have always meant to do this but never found the time. Picked the right orientation to get the kind of lighting I was looking for and also paid close attention to the background.

While working to the pay the bills I keep one eye on the birds. They only stay a few seconds usually so not much time lost from work.

All with OM 350mm f2.8 + OM 1.4 TC, f stops ranging from f2.8 to f5.6, most at ISO 320, 200 in better light. Played with shutter speeds to get some blur on the flight shots.

Shooting distance is just over ten feet which is the minimum focus of this combination. Most of these are uncropped or cropped slightly for composition.

Some results.

The Hummingbird Chronicles.

This is my Olympus hummingbird, it was pouring rain and she was still flying.



Some better weather



One of the few I tried at f8



Check out the talons on this one.



Check out the attitude on this one…



A few more in the next post
 
Some with the type of lighting I was looking for ( backlight, shooting directly in to the sun, reflected light off the house filling in the front) A very dark shaded background and -2.7EV to keep the highlights makes the background go black naturally.



With a milkweed seed stuck to its beak.



A couple of a young male.





A young female



Liked the light on the eye, you can see the pupil if you look closely.



Gary
 
Great work ! I personally like the first few. The bottom half were a bit dark for my liking, but kudos to all the hard work you took to share these lovely photos. :)
 
Sanjay,

Thanks for commenting, and reminding that I forget to say all were taken with the E-3 camera set to aperture priority , manual focus only with the OM lenses.

Gary
 
Wow, what images. Those back-lit files look awesome on my LCD. The detail is incredible and your processing spot on.
 
Love them all but especially the lighting in the last few. Real "specimen photos" which take much skill to get. Awesome!
--
Don.

A Land Rover, a camera ... I'm happy!
 
excelent shots!!! great job!

the only thing that i sugest is to brighten them a little(looks a little bit dark on my monitor)
 
Stunning photos. Absolutely gorgeous in my opinion.
--
Uncle LJ, just a guy taking pictures
 
brendon1000

Thanks for looking and commenting.

Re: dark photos - you need to look at these preferably in a darkened room with little or no ambient lighting. (That's when I do my editing) I tend to like things a bit on the dark side but under those conditions they are right on the edge on my monitor.

I have also printed most of these on matte papers and the darks are not getting lost so I think I am pretty close.

Gary
 
Greg

Thanks for looking and commenting.

Appreciate the feedback on the processing - my tried and true Viewsonic CRT died recently and I just purchased another old CRT for now so not quite sure about the monitor settings/calibration yet.

Gary
 
Phil

Thanks for looking and commenting.

I liked the last one as well gives a good idea of the DOF of this lens - pretty darn shallow.

Gary
 
Rob

Thanks for looking and commenting.

This lens is a little bit sharp.

Gary
 
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