It’s actually fairly basic.  I tend to set up right by the hot tub so that I can quickly focus on 1 of the 4 Hummingbird feeders (you can only see two of them in the following pictures).  As a reminder, my camera is a Canon 40D, flash is a 580 EXII, and the primary lens I use is the Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L IS USM.  We actually used Leecy’s camera to take these pictures which is a Canon PowerShot SD700 IS.

Looking at this picture from left to right, is Bamboo, Pomegranate (with the green wrap around it), Milkweed (where the white chair is), and Wisteria (hanging on the fence).  You can see how in less than ideal light conditions, shooting towards the fence will fool the camera into thinking it is much darker outside than it really is.

Hummingbird Camera Setup 1

In this shot it’s essentially the same as above, but showing a bit of the hot tub and the Hummingbird Bush (in the pot).

Hummingbird Camera Setup 2

In this final picture you can see the Firecracker Bush, Pussywillow (the tree), Coneflowers, Fennel, Hummingbird Bush, Lady Banks Climbing Rose, Dutchman’s Pipevine, and a couple of others I can’t recall right now. I consider this area more of my nectar garden area as it’s where the Butterflies, Bees, and Hummingbirds like to hang out.  Again, I’m shooting towards a fairly dark background which makes the available light less than ideal.

Hummingbird Camera Setup 3

That’s basically it.  Feel free to ask any questions and I will do my best to answer

I’ll give it one more shot tomorrow, and if that doesn’t work, I’m done.  By the way, all the pictures that I posted tonight below this post were taken with the 70-200mm lens.  None of them appear particularly sharp (at least to me).

Well, I don’t think I will be purchasing this lens right now after all.  My primary issue with this lens is that it didn’t seem near as sharp as my 100-400mm lens I currently use.  Some may say perhaps I got a bad copy of this lens and that could certainly be true.  Honestly I’m really disappointed in some ways because I just expected this lens to blow me away and this just wasn’t the case.  It also could be that I don’t quite have the necessary skills to take advantage of this lens.  On the bright side, by trying to use this lens over the weekend, I started experimenting with the manual settings on my camera and I think this will lead to better pictures.  By using the manual settings and adjusting the Aperture and Shutter Speed, I was able to take pictures of Butterflies in flight as long as there was semi-decent light.  I didn’t think this was possible using my current lens because I didn’t think it could focus fast enough when compared to the 70-200.  I was wrong.

Anyway, the good news is that I won’t be spending nearly $2000.00 for a new lens and this was a great learning experience for me.  For anyone who is considering getting a new camera or lens, you may want to consider renting or borrowing a copy first as you may save hundreds if not thousands of dollars!  Without renting this lens, I’m sure I would have bought this lens and then have been consistently disappointed.

I also read something this weekend that said something like “a great photographer can take a bad camera and bad lens and make wonderful photographs, whereas a bad photographer with a great camera and lens will take bad photographs.”  That message really resonated with me for some reason.  I think that it did show me that no matter what lens or camera I use, if I don’t better understand some of the basics of good photography, I simply wont be able to take great pictures, or pictures that look great to me.  All this is really good though as I only spent 100.00 and feel this has spurred me to really start shooting in manual mode, where it’s essential I understand light, distance, focusing, patience, and perhaps most important, the behavior of the critter I am trying to take a picture of.  For example (allow me to get all this off my chest so I can go back and read it and remind myself what I want to learn), if I wanted to take a picture of a Giant Swallowtail in flight versus a Pipevine Swallowtail.  Previously I would just have turned the camera to the AV settings and started firing away.  I’d be willing to bet that nearly all my shots of the Pipevine would have been less sharp than that of the Giant Swallowtail.  Why?  Because it is do with light (in this case) and knowing your subject.  Giant Swallowtails are very slow flyers and they seem to hover as much as they do fly.  A Pipevine Swallowtail is a much more frantic flyer, and his wings are dark, and these situations can fool a camera and over expose an image.  I would now know that I would need to set a much faster shutter speed for the Pipevine Swallowtail than for the Giant Swallowtail.  I really do love learning something new and this weekend has been good for that thanks to my decision to rent this lens before buying it.

The lens should be here on Thursday.  That’s the good news.  The bad news is that after Thursday I’m going to attempt to take pictures with this lens like a wildman.  The other bad news is what if I really like this lens?  Then what?  The queen of the house hasn’t/won’t give me permission to buy it. I know the sudden charm thing won’t work either.  I guess I could offer her two nights of crafting with her friend(s) and I would have to act as their servant or something.  I could also sell 1-2 of my lenses that I don’t use that much if anyone is interested.

Then again, maybe this lens isn’t that great:-)