2014 Hummingbird Season

[Mike Bons]

Beautiful shots. They are a very neat bird to watch. Wont be long now and they will be hitchhiking their way south.

Thanks! Yes the adults have already left. I just have a few juveniles that are fattening up before they leave.

[rfb]

Great shots. What camera and lens are you using

[Mike Bons]

Thanks! I'm using a Canon 6D with a Canon 400mm F/5.6L + 1.4x teleconverter.

[Bo D]

Mike, those two videos are absolutely amazing. Love the ome of them feeding from your hand. Do you think it's the same birds year after year or do the young ones come in as well...

[rfb]

How do you like your 6D? I shoot a 7d, but have been thinking of going full frame.

[Mike Bons]

Mike, those two videos are absolutely amazing. Love the ome of them feeding from your hand. Do you think it's the same birds year after year or do the young ones come in as well...

Thanks. I actually took several videos this year of hand feeding him. I posted a couple of them that I took with my iphone and they got over 10,000 "likes" and several thousand "shares" on FB. I wish my still shots had that kind of exposure!!

Of course every year there are juvenile and I am not sure if the actual numbers of hummingbirds is increasing but I am almost certain that male hummingbird in those videos, and in the majority the stills, has been coming to our feeders for 5 years now. I know there are some that won't believe me but given this birds personality (ability to hand feed), and he uses the exact same perch all summer long every year, I believe it's the same bird. Other than this one, no I can't really tell the other birds from year to year.

[Mike Bons]

How do you like your 6D? I shoot a 7d, but have been thinking of going full frame.

Well if this tells you anything, I just sold my 7D. I had the 7D for 4 years and I had a bit of a love/hate relationship with it. About the only thing I really miss about it is the 8fps for BIF. I bought the 6D a year ago. During this time I had the 5D, 6D and 7D. I almost never used the 7D. I much prefer the image quality of the 6D compared to the 7D. ISO performance of the 6D blows the 7D away. You may hear that the 6D's AF is lacking, which it is compared to the 5DIII, but compared to the 7D I have more keepers with the 6D even with BIF. I could post dozens of in flight waterfowl shots from last year that I took with the 6D which I am really happy with. I also shoot portraits (wedding and family shots), landscape and I shoot the odd astro shot now that I have a camera that can shoot high ISO.

[rfb]

Thanks for the info, I appreciate it.