I spent some time watching my hummingbird feeders today and had a repeat of a new weird problem with my camera or my lens (70-300mm) or maybe it’s the operator. I hope it’s me. What happens is the camera will not allow the shutter release to trigger. I think it’s related to auto focus and couldn’t replicate the problem when I was on manual focus but with a subject like a hummingbird, I want to use continuous focus while tracking the bird, especially when it flies to and from the feeder. I am on a quest to get a perfectly focused shot of hummingbird in flight and I’m not adept enough at twiddling the manual focus ring to make the quick minute adjustments necessary to photograph a hummingbird in flight.
I did manage to capture a few well-focused photos when my camera/lens didn’t let me down. I set the ISO to 640 and the shutter speed to 1/640 and the aperture was wide open (not quite the Sunny 16 rule – but it was cloudy when I took the shots). Here are my three favorites, with photos of birds at two different feeders, hence the vastly different background.
The high shutter speed still doesn’t stop the wing movement.
.
Focal Length 280mm
ISO 640
f/5.6
1/640
Cropped
To me, the most unusual shot shows the bird’s partially closed eye; my shutter speed was fast enough to capture that blink.
Focal Length 230mm
ISO 640
f/5.6
1/640
Levels, cropped
Finally, I just liked the focus on this shot which was one of the earlier shots. Too bad his tail isn’t completely in the photo. This shot was at 300mm so for the rest of the shots I took, I reduced the focal length so that I didn’t cut the tail off again. I took the two shots above after I took this shot.
Focal Length 300mm
ISO 640
f/5.6
1/640
Levels, cropped
These photos are stunning! The focus- amazing! I cannot believe the detail you were able to capture! And as for the shutter problems- thing of the past! In a couple days you will have a brand new camera!!!!!!!!!!!! Has it been shipped? Are you tracking its every move???