Description

I was determined to get a good photograph of a hummingbird. It took about three days of shooting to get this. I moved a feeder into the direct sunlight, then started testing different exposure settings. I worked in manual, trying combinations of ISO and shutter speed, looking at them on the computer, and going back to try again. I found that a shutter speed of 1/2000 will freeze the wing movement. 1/1200 or 1/1600 froze the body and left some wing blur. I ended up with a lot of good shots and put some in my gallery here, but this was my favorite. The biggest challenge was keeping the ISO low enough so there wouldn't be a lot of noise when I zoomed in and cropped the image, but the shutter speed fast enough to expose the image with my lens fully extended and at f/5.6. At 1/2000, the image was a little underexposed. I shot in RAW and lightened the exposure by about a stop in photoshop.

Exif: F Number: 5.6, Exposure Bias Value: 0.00, ExposureTime: 1/2000 seconds, Flash: did not fire, compulsory flash mode, ISO: 320, White balance: Auto white balance, FocalLength: 300.00 mm, Model: Canon EOS 5D