Wednesday, January 7, 2009


Hummingbirds have always amazed me. Such delicate creatures yet so powerful in flight. The ability of a camera to stop motion is at it's best when shooting hummingbirds.

Self-Portrait....The camera on a tripod with large depth of field set. I was hidden away from view with a remote. With no fear of an intruder, the bird hovered in front of the lens as if to say "what is this"? The sound of the shutter and it was gone as quick as it came.

11 comments:

Heather said...

Dan, how extremely exciting; just waiting for the little creature to take notice and how sweet that it found interest in your strange contraption.

By the way, thank you for your many soft words ;o). I really appreciate your thoughts and care.

♥ Heather

Anonymous said...

Outstanding close-up, Dan. My method of capturing one good hummer was nothing but luck. It looks like a tapestry.

http://www.fotothing.com/Wildspirit/photo/722dfabc7656820ec28101ebca5aa2a0/

We can only hope to get better, and I have to work on my writing as well.

Please visit http://www.wildspiritjim.blogspot.com

Jim Pankey, USN (Ret.)
jpankey@gmail.com

Dan Felstead said...

Heather,

You're welcomed. That particular picture was taken about 2 years ago...since then, they have gotten comfortable with the camera.

Dan

Dan Felstead said...

Wildspirit,

I am glad you left a message. Yesterday, I was on your site and looked for an area to comment and couldn't find it. I wanted to compliment you on the photos on PPP...great work! Do you have a comment area on your blog?

Dan

Chris said...

That is a great shot!

Sacha van Straten said...

It is my movement,
Faster than a man can see,
Which gives me presence,
Making the beating heart appear.

A visual version of the poem can be seen at:
http://snipurl.com/9noxr

Dan Felstead said...

Sacha,
Great poem describing the hummingbird and captures it's essence!

Also I wanted to ask...I visited your flikr site and I looked at the pictures of London by night. It is unbelievable how crystal clear these photos are taken with a camera phone!! How many megapixels is it? It must be 3 to 6 or so.

Sacha van Straten said...

Hi Dan,

They are surprisingly good, aren't they? Nor have I tweaked them in Photoshop. V snall tidy up using the Adjust option on iPhoto, but that's it.

5MP fixed lens (tiny tiny aperture) but some very good algorythmic magic going on there, not to mention some ingenious A-D conversion programming.

When I get a chance I'll pop up some video footage I shot with the Flip camcorder, by the lake where I live in France. You'd never guess it's from a flixed lens 640x480 webcam. Again, very clever optical trickery at the digital level.

Loving the new uploads by the way. Inspiring!

Sacha

Dan Felstead said...

Sacha,

Thanks for getting back to me. I am just astounded to see this quality from a phone camera! I have the hots right now for a Flip but even though they are relatively low cost, I just recently bought a Canon G9 for the mobility rather than always lugging around an SLR and it does a good job of video as well.

Dan

Karrie said...

They amaze you and me both! What a wonderful picture.

Dan Felstead said...

Thanks for the comment Karrie.

Dan