How to Take Great Hummingbird Pictures

Even though there are thousands of hummingbird pictures to be found on the internet, there is no greater satisfaction than having your own collection of your birds to display and share with others. Building a photo collection of these wonderful birds is easy to do if you follow the simple steps in this article.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Digital Camera
• Adjustable height Tripod
• Some patience

1. 
    

   First of all, when you put out your feeders, you should place them in your yard or on your patio or deck where it is easy to set up a camera for taking the pictures. Take the time to stand close to the feeders, at first the birds may shy away from you, but after awhile they will be used to your presence and will fly right in and feed. I have several feeders and the birds will sometimes be inches away from me.

2. 
    

   In the settings mode for your digital camera, set the auto off feature to either off or to the maximum time it will allow. Nothing is more discouraging than waiting patiently for the perfect picture and then finding your camera turned off when it finally comes.

3. 
    

   Mount your camera to the tripod and set it up as close as you can to the feeder. Once again the birds may shy away from it until they get used to you again along with this strange thing next to you.

4. 
    

   Using the zoom feature on your camera, bring the image as close as you can. Try and avoid using the digital zoom if your camera does this, try to stay in the optical zoom range. Once you have moved into the digital zoom range the pictures will be degraded somewhat, and our goal is to get the sharpest pictures we can.

5. 
    

   Pre- focus the camera, take a couple of test shots to make sure you aren't cutting anything out of your desired pictures. Make sure the camera is set up so it is easy to reach the shutter button, fast movements will make the birds fly away. Your flash should be turned off, the bright light will startle the birds

6. 
    

   Be patient! The hummingbirds will come. If you are like me and get tired of standing, you can make your tripod shorter and put a chair next to it for you to sit down in. Now is the time to enjoy a cup of coffee and read a magazine and just enjoy being outside. Always keeping an ear open to the sound of whirring wings. When the birds start coming just gently reach up and start taking pictures. You can always go back and delete the bad ones, though you won't find many of those. Just lots of pictures of hummingbirds in lots of different poses.

7. 
    

   While you are all set up with your camera, check out all the other photo opportunities you have. Close ups of flowers or bees and wasps stopping by to feed can be interesting and wonderful additions to your collection of photos. Using the tripod you will get very sharp pictures, no problems with camera shake that happens so often when trying to take a zoomed in picture.

Tips & Warnings

• What to do with all these hummingbird pictures? Pick your favorites and have them printed to place in picture frames around your house. I like photo collages myself, the best way I know of to show off many pictures all at once when picking your favorite is so hard to do.
• Submit them to photo contests in magazines or newspapers. You will have a large collection of winners to choose from.
• They make wonderful wallpapers for your computer screen especially in the dreary days of winter when you are wishing spring will be coming back soon.
• If you wear brightly colored clothes, the hummingbirds will also be attracted to you. They will fly right up to you checking you out to make sure you aren't a giant flower waiting for them.

Resources

• Birds and Blooms Magazine
• Wonderful videos of hummingbirds

[missnye]

on 11/20/2009 Be careful. Hummingbirds will attack! Great article!

[mboone84]

on 11/11/2009 Great article on How to Take Great Hummingbird Pictures

[LilacGirl]

on 9/17/2009 Excellent tips for photographing hummingbirds.

[Gardengates]

on 8/13/2009 Thanks for the hummingbird photography tips. I really need to do this. Floundering around the yard with a camera after these zippy little colorful birds hasn't worked well for me!