Only my NX1 kit travels with me this time

TuVuVu wrote:

Thank you for taking the time to provide such detailed insights (really). I imagine your "images this week from 8 to 12 inches" were all shot at a feeder, with feeder copped out in post except for Male Hummingbird with the 60mm Macro, because successfully shooting one flying hummers in real-time flightDOES require "AI flying bots" ,based on its unpredictable, extremely fast flight patterns,and seeing you shot females and males, we both know through experience their real-time flight pattern becomes exponentially chaotic when two or more are in play!

On the first day I saw only the female. From "my perch" sitting on the porch, I noticed that she was very predictable in her flight path from her perch up in the tree down to the flowers in the garden. It was the second day that I took out the camera with 50-150mm S and placed myself, hidden by the tree, right in that flight path. From there, I caught the original image in the OP the second she noticed me and backed up (3 shot burst).

I only first saw the male on Day 3 when we put up the feeder. I thought I would just try to make myself "part of the feeder" by standing still with the 60mm Macro only about 8-12 inches away and waiting. I heard the hum of the wings nearby and expected the female to come into my viewfinder. I was surprised to see the male immediately take a sip and caught this image , again in a 3 shot burst.

The feeder did help in the 4 images from 2 days and 3 days later. Each time I placed myself so I could point the 50-150mm S to the space just away from the feeder in the direction the birds would come from. The female remained totally predictable and ALWAYS stopped in that same spot where the pre-focused lens was pointed before proceeding to the feeder. I could have taken a hundred images of her. The male was more wary of me and less predictable, but he still had to approach from the same spot and pull up just before reaching the feeder. I had a number of totally unusable 3 shot bursts, but did get the keepers in the Gallery . What made the automatic spot focus so effective in all the images was the bright sun reflecting up on the birds from the pool water behind me (see first image in Gallery - feeder is almost dead center), while the background was almost totally black from being under the trees.

Ed, What percentage of your "images this week from 8 to 12 inches" are hand-held, mono-pod, tripod?

ALL images were handheld from both the 60mm and 50-150mm S lenses. That is the only way I could rock back and forth to maintain focus once attained, to stay with the movement of the birds. Using the EVF is essential in this method, creating 3-points of steadying contact , eye to EVF and two elbows on chest. It's the way we did all moving shots with manual film cameras back in the day.

All the best,
Tu Vu

Thanks for contributing to this thread (and your comments elsewhere - I'll address those later today). I appreciate it.

Ed