Hummingbird at Hover

I captured this shot while fooling around with a few new toys early this summer. I had some hummingbirds buzzing around the flowers off the patio. They seemed to like one flower alot so I set up and waited. The new toys were a Canon EF 400 F/2.8 with a 1.4x TC, A Wimberly II gimbal head and a Gitzo Mountaineer CF tripod.

EXIF
Canon 40D, Canon EF 400 F/2.8 + 1.4x TC
F/7.1 @ 1/800th
560mm @ ISO 400

Nice simple shot Brian, the clean background is a nice touch. It does seem a touch noisy in the background, though that may be a result of compression issues. If it is in fact noise, you could easily clean it up with Noise Ninja or Neat Image, and mask off the bird so that you don't loose detail. Nice work.

Compressing to under 200Kb is the issue here. Prints at 8x10 are very clean and sharp and I will prolly do one at 13 x19. The green background is really the alphalfa field just beyond.
So many sites with size restrictions I wish they would all just settle 800 pixels wide which will prevent scrolling on most monitors and if you are using such a small one as to have to scroll ....well tuff luck

BTW did you notice the spider web fuzz on her beak!!

Beautiful shot, eye and body are tack sharp, with enough blur in wings to look natural.In your equipment, you did'nt mention flash. Di you not use flash? Great image!

Awesome! I'm very impressed (and, jealous!)... ;)

Tim!

Really like the clean background on this one, Brian and the capture of the wings in motion. Small nit is what appears to be the blown out whites near the tail.

Nice catch. Looks like the new tools will get used a lot.

Beautiful detail, Brian. The spider web is a nice touch.

Great capture with a nice set of toys.