Give hummingbird photography a try and you will find it’s very easy to get good results at and near your nectar feeder.
Be alert when a hummingbird is feeding, and take advantage of moments when a hummer takes flight or hovers near the feeder.
During a break in its active lifestyle, this female Ruby-throated Hummingbird provided a series of portrait-style photos as it perched on a leaf stem adjacent to the feeder.
A super close-up photo was created by cropping an extra-sharp photo taken during a rest stop. The details of individual feathers and the eye and bill add another dimension of intimacy with a hummingbird visiting a feeding station.
Hummingbirds live in a fast-forward world that makes photographing them interesting and exciting. Photographing hummingbirds can be surprisingly simple when you follow a few tips provided here.
This photo, taken through a glass window with backlighting (poor photo conditions), provided the spark of initiative to get outside with my camera – a move that instantly improved the quality of photographs taken with the same equipment.
Another “through the glass window with backlighting” image shows some interesting action that resembles a hummingbird pirouette. However, it’s mostly provided here to illustrate how photographing with the sun behind you, with a monotone background, and a clear view of the nectar feeder without the impact of window glass improved the results in big ways with a minimum effort. (Compare details and colors of this photo with the first photograph.)
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After morning rain and in advance of an afternoon gloom, the sun beamed through for almost 15 minutes Saturday, providing the chance to take a few Ruby-throated Hummingbird photos at and near my feeding station outside my bay windows. When the sun first broke through, I had to double-check to see if I was actually seeing sunshine, then grabbed my camera and headed outside to stand in just the right spot to photograph. I waited a few moments before a hummingbird appeared above the feeder and provided a chance to take a series of rewarding photographs, and paired with photos I took the previous noontime I share some favorites with you here as I emphasize that it was so much fun.
From the above description of how simple it can be to photograph hummingbirds that visit your nectar feeder and blooming flowers, use my good luck as incentive to take a few moments to try some photographs of hummingbirds in your yard too. It’s definitely not as hard as you may think, and I actually took the first photos from inside my house, photographing through a window at close range. Initially impressed that a couple of the photos were sharp, I cropped them into “keeper” photos, even though they were taken with the position of the sun backlighting the bird – not an option I usually accept or recommend.
However, the window photos served a bigger purpose in that they inspired me to walk outside and get in position to try to photograph the hummingbirds with the sun at my back, igniting their iridescent green plumage and brightening all their colors. The photos taken through the clear air showed how dull and somewhat monotone the initial photos I took through the window illuminated by backlighting really were. As an example, I include 2 of the window photos at the end of the illustrations to compare with the sharper, brighter photos that precede them.
Having touched on the importance of photographing with the sun behind you and the birds in front of you, we’ve covered the most important part of photographing – Sunlight. As I was searching for the right location to photograph between the sun and the feeder, I focused on the feeder from what I considered a Safe Distance to insure I would not affect the hummingbirds’ feeding visits and perching behavior in the immediate area. As I focused my camera lens on the feeder, I checked the background and saw that if I moved 2 steps to the right, I would have the uniformly white color of my house as Background – another important consideration when photographing at a feeding station, or anywhere.
The white background provided an excellent background to emphasize a hummingbird when it perched at the nectar feeder, or when it hovered next to it. Additionally, I photographed perched hummingbirds with green backgrounds when they perched among the leaves of the adjacent ash tree, as well as the dark brown background of the tree trunk, and with the blue sky as a background too. In all these cases I wanted to blur the background into a more uniform background color that would accent the bird rather than compete with it. To do this I used the f-6 Aperture, which also helped to increase the shutter speed.
I knew I needed to use the fastest Shutter Speed possible when photographing the speedy little hummingbirds; not necessarily when they were perched or feeding, but definitely when I tried to take action photos of them when they hesitated a moment above the feeder, as they hovered for a moment before perching, or as they repositioned from one feeding port to another on the feeder. That’s when a little anticipation was required, and some quick reflexes, because I didn’t want to miss a photo chance; and I also wanted to try to take more than one photo during the momentary hovering episodes.
The first photo session was about 30 minutes, but I was thrilled with a few of the photographs I took, and I was hooked into photographing during the short period around noon when the sun illuminated the feeder, the background, and adjoining trees before the feeder fell back into the shade of the leaves that are just beginning to show signs of fall color changes. That brings up the need to be aware of when your nectar feeder is in the best sunlight – that’s the best Photo Period – so plan your photo sessions accordingly on sunny days.
Depending on when sunlight illuminates your feeder, mid-morning and late afternoon usually provide the best Sunlight Angle for photography, but I found that the period just before and after 12 noon worked OK at my northern latitude because the sun was still positioned a bit to the southeast side of the sky during these mid-September days, and it turned out that overhead shadows weren’t a problem.
One of the most important things that I want to share with you is to Take Lots of Photos! Bird photography is always a hit-and-miss process, and when you are trying to photograph hummingbirds, the misses grossly outnumber the photos that you will crop and share with others. But a big part of the Fun of photographing hummingbirds is taking lots of photographs, as long as the hummers are accommodating. The Practice helps too, and you will probably find your own way of improving on my suggestions and examples of what worked for me over the weekend – Good Luck!
Birding with a Camera
Most of the time, the ultimate quality of the resulting photos you take will depend on the camera and lens combination you use. You don’t need expensive equipment, you just need equipment beyond your cellphone’s camera. I use my everyday camera and lens, an economical camera body – nothing special – with a zoom lens that is pretty special, but almost any zoom lens will do. I encourage every birder to have a camera and a zoom lens, primarily because it will expand your interest in birds, seeing the photographs you take of birds will help you to be a better birder, plus taking documentary photos is useful for you and it is required for rare bird sightings. Bird photography is also a very enjoyable creative activity, and it’s a personal artistic outlet.
Photography has been such an important extension to my birding experiences – it adds appreciably to the enjoyment and depth of appreciation for birds, birding, and nature. But let’s return to our backyards: If you don’t have suitable photo equipment, perhaps this can be an incentive to take that next step in your birding activities. Too expensive? There’s always a way to make a camera purchase less of a drag on your budget, even if it’s a matter of making monthly payments for a year – you will soon find that the New Joy you experience with birds will make that $35 or $65 monthly payment well worth it. It’s all about taking the first step to appreciate the joy of photography.
To begin with, and for the purposes of photographing hummingbirds – or any other birds – at your nectar feeder, here’s an idea: Invite a friend who has a camera to come over to photograph hummingbirds visiting your feeder, with the idea that they will permit you to take some photos using their camera during the shared activity. Personally, I love to share my birding equipment with others, my binoculars and camera. I always offer my camera/lens combo to friends and other birders that show an interest in looking through my photo equipment, and encourage them to take some photos in the process, all while sharing a couple simple photo tips too.
If you live in northern latitudes, there may not be many more days when you are in the company of hummingbirds that are actively migrating, but in other areas, peak numbers of migrants are connecting with nectar feeders, especially along the Gulf Coast states where Ruby-throated Hummingbirds are beginning to concentrate before migrating farther south. To the west, new species may appear now, such as Rufous Hummingbirds or Broad-tailed Hummingbirds, and in areas of the sunbelt from Texas to California, you may have a chance to photograph hummingbirds almost any month of the year.
Be sure to give some hummingbird photography a try, but in case hummingbirds don’t visit your home range, any birds will do. The information provided here is applicable if you want to photograph finches at a nyjer thistle feeder, woodpeckers at a suet feeder, or jays at a peanut feeder – and it’s almost time to try to get some photos of birds among the colors of fall – Good Luck!
Article and Photos by Paul Konrad
Share your backyard birding experiences and photographs with The Birding Wire at editorstbw2@gmail.com