More images, more creativity….

Connie Wade is the President/Chairperson/Head Honcho of the Thousand Oaks Photo Group. You can see their excellent website here. She is an outstanding photographer and specializes in pet photography, however is also (like me) fascinated in bugs and beasts of all sorts. Some of her macro work is breathtaking, regardless of the fact that (like me) she has a bad back….That doesn’t stop her getting down and dirty on the ground after subjects though – she is a real trooper. Take a look at her own website here. I was flattered to have her attend my hummingbird workshop, and she produced some wonderful images…..

Creativity….

I regard myself as a fairly competent photographer, particularly from a technical point of view. I can adjust the necessary parameters to create a great exposure for given conditions, exploit flash where necessary, and have a pretty deep understanding of the basic principles of photography in general. I am, after all, an engineer…..

Back Button Autofocus (Canon) and why you should be using it….

There is a very well written explanation of Back Button AF on the Canon USA website, and why you should use it. It only takes a few minutes to read, and is well worth it.  BBAF  is a feature exploited by many photographers to focus, instead of the standard shutter button. For hummingbird photography, I find it so much easier to divorce focus from the shutter button and metering – the article clearly explains why. I customize my settings one step further as well….

Sometimes you get a little lucky….

It is oft said, ‘the harder I practice, the luckier I get’. There is no better example of that than photography. The more pictures you take, the better you become at taking them….

A More Advanced Approach…

During my workshops, I stress that it is the quality of light that makes an impressive image, and this is certainly the case with hummingbirds. The problem is for the workshop, the more you improve the light quality, the exponentially more difficult it is to shoot. Students understand why, and leave the workshop fully armed with the knowledge they need to make all the tradeoffs necessary……

A hot one yesterday…..

90 degree heat confronted my students yesterday afternoon….Undaunted, they went about making some stunning images during the workshop, even early on, when the birds were a little sparse in number….

Experimenting with flowers and lenses

This evening I shot for an hour or so at the Fotronix setup, but played things a little different. I placed some colorful flowers at the set, and instead of using my trusty old Canon 100-400mm lens, I decided to try my Canon 70-200mm f2.8 (Mk 1 version) with my Sigma 2x converter……