Ruby throated hummingbird

Canon 30D, 70-200 f/4L
Settings: ISO: 800, aperture: f/4, shutter: 1/320 sec

Backyards offer a great place to hone your wildlife shooting skills.  A viewing blind can be easily set up and moved around as the need may be. Many great shots can be captured from the comfort of a lawn chair, as was the case with this ruby throated hummingbird feeding on a fuchsia blossom.

For shots like this I’m in aperture priority at f/4, wide open for this lens.  f/4 does a nice job blurring the background and allows the fastest shutter speed for any given ISO.  To freeze, or in this case partially freeze, the wings of the hummer I had to crank up the ISO to 800 to get to a 1/320 second shutter speed.

Photos were processed using Lightroom 3.  Both images were cropped slightly.  Luminance was adjusted with the target adjustment tool and a slight vignetting was applied to the corners.  Sharpening was locally applied using the masking tool.