Fontenelle Forest - September 1

The Fontenelle Forest Wetlands looked different today.  Summer is turning into fall.  Birds are beginning to flock.  The backgrounds of some of my photos are turning into shades of yellow and orange.  Birds are more difficult to identify as the youngsters mix with the older birds.  Sunrise is arriving later every day.

A Ruby-throated Humming bird visits a flowering Bull Thistle in search of nectar.

A sparrow searches for another bug.

A Raccoon  searches for food along the back of the pond.

A young Cardinal  is learning to live on his own.

A Red-winged blackbird watches from a Maximilian Sunflower plant.

A couple of young Red-winged Black Birds enjoy a September morning.

Hummingbirds - August 13

This isn't the best photo becasuse of the placement of the wing.  It does demonstrate the stopping power of the 550EX at 1/64 power.  The wings are frozen. Notice the detail in the feathers.

I set up 3 550EX Speedlites to photograph hummingbirds tonight.  They were triggered by Pocket Wizards.   I placed one light on each side of my target area.  The third light was placed above the center of the target.

When I started, I set the shutter speed to 1/8000 ISO 1000 f2.8.  This worked well - the speedlites provided fill.  When it was darker, I switched to using flash as my main light.  ISO was set at 200, aperture was set to f8 and shutter speed was set at 1/250.

The hummingbirds did not tolerate the flash - immediately flying away.  As it got darker, I lost all color in the background and depended completely on the speedlites.  Unfortunately one speedlight was not firing - it wasn't properly seated in the hot shoe.  Two speedlites were not adequate and my shadows increased as it got darker. 

1/8000 and high speed flash worked surprisingly well.  I definitely need to light the background in order to prevent a black background.  The flashes were able to stop the wings in most cases.  When I set the aperture to f8, the increased depth of field was very useful.

.
This is my favorite shot today. 

Backyard Hummingbirds

Nebraska is a poor place to photograph hummingbirds.  For the most part, we are only visited by a single species - the Ruby-throated Hummingbird.   The majority of hummingbirds that arrive in Nebraska,  stay a day or two and then depart for other locations.

I've been fortunate to be able to attract hummingbirds at all.  Truth be told, I stole mine from the neighbors.  I thought that putting up a feeder in my yard would attract a bird of my own.  But, the little birds are very  territorial and the bird next door now has to keep all other hummers away from my feeder too.  My feeder doubled his workload. 

These photos were taken with a 2 flash setup.  I used Einstein strobes, set to their lowest level.  I had too much ambient light to completely stop the wings.

This is my favorite shot from today.  I like the way that the wing on the right is twisted as the hummer makes a turn.

I didn't have many opportunities to photograph the male - he was too busy guarding the feeder to eat.

I liked the way that the natural background works in this shot.