Birds in Nature - images of wild birds by Richard Ditch

Subject: Costa's Hummingbird (Calypte costae)
Place: Phoenix, AZ, USA
Date: August 1998
Equipment: Nikon N90S, Nikkor AF-S 300/2.8, TC20E (600/5.6), tripod.
Film: Fujichrome Sensia II 100 exposed normally
Exposure: Aperture priority matrix meter, natural light, no fill flash
Scan: Minolta Dimage, 65% of frame

Commentary: Taken in our backyard while I sat in a lawn chair on the patio, with the hummingbird about 12 feet away on the end of the agave leaf. Costa's is a true desert hummingbird, and we have a few in our yard every day of the year. The male's throat and head are iridescent purple with a gorget that extends outward from the face like the whiskers of Yosemite Sam in the Warner Brothers cartoons. As with all hummingbirds, the amount of color and sparkle on the gorget is highly dependent on the angle of the light and the angle of view. With natural light you can see what you are getting, while flash requires a lot of faith or a lot of experience or a lot of flashes to get brilliant color. The direction of lighting for this shot doesn't show the wonderful purple, but does show good texture of the feathers. I am not a fan of hummingbird photos made with fake backgrounds at a feeder with multiple flash - I prefer the natural look shown here.

What I like about this shot is the way the bird's bill mimics the shape of the agave leaf he is sitting on, almost as if he is making a size comparison. I also like the natural light on the bird and the green part of the agave.