OK.. I said I'd take a shot of one of my setups for hummingbird shots.

Here you go.

The Vivitar flash is new and  this is the only shot I have taken with it that I've posted.

I bounce between the lens shown and my Sigma 70-300mm. Here are more shots taken from the same place.

A Young Rufous
The Hummer From Hell
A Young Male Anna's In Flight
A Young Rufous I think. May be a Calliope. Very hard to tell the young ones apart.
Young Male Anna's Closeup
Adult Female Anna's In Flight
Adult Male Anna's

Set up a place to shoot that is comfortable for you. If you have too many birds fighting put up another feeder. Kick back and talk to them while they feed so they get used to you. Keep your body movements slow and easy. Plan on one good shot out of many. And last... enjoy them!! They are one of the smallest but greatest creatures on earth.

I've been here. Just in one of my quiet and working too hard modes.

I got my new/used Vivitar 283 off EBay the other day and got a chance to play with it today as far as freezing wing motion on hummers. Still a little too much daylight when I took this one this evening but I think there is a chance this is going to work. When I get a chance early morning or on a cloudy day I'll give it another shot and see what happens.

BTW.. this is a young male Anna's. You can see the red spots starting to develop on the upper part of his head.

I got lazy and parked the Canon on the tripod and my butt in the chair and away we went.

It has been a zoo around the back deck the last couple of weeks. All of the new kids are hitting the feeders pretty hard. It gets tough when you have a lot of them of one kind but when you mix Anna's and Rufous it can turn into a small war zone. I have to look before opening the door because they use the breezeway between the house and studio for a flyway to get from one feeder to the other.

Anyway.. you can't see the air those wings are beating in at around 55 beats per second but you can sure hear the sound.

This is a young Rufous female... 1, 2, 3, 4,  5, 6, and 7.

This is a young Anna's. From the color on it's cheeks and a couple of red spots near the eyes I think it is male but he won't hold still long enough to look under his tail to see (grin). 1, 2, 3, and 4. This bird has a funny sound. I'm guessing it has a damaged tip on a primary feather. It sounds kind of like an old hand egg beater. Only one I've ever heard like it. The sound will change when the new feather grows in.

While I'm not as lucky as some and haven't found nests, my hummingbirds have been doing the nasty and the "children" are now showing up at the feeders. This last week has been a real zoo. Besides my resident pair of mating Anna's the kids have been hitting the feeders hard. There are also a number of young Rufous showing up. Needless to say having both kinds of them here at the same time can make things a real war zone when it comes to which "flower" belongs to which bird.

These shots are a young Anna's male. As far as his color is advancing I'll guess he is from the first breeding this spring.

At the feeder,  Backed off from the feeder,  Full size crop from image. When he is all grown up he will look like His daddy.

Will have more Oregon Coast shots to post later this week along with some from the local car show and cruise yesterday.