National Pollinators Week

Early this afternoon I headed down to the garden to give it some extra water. It has been so hot and I was sure the plant bed was drying out. While heading out the door I grabbed my camera with a macro lens. I figured I could photograph bees while the hose soaked some water around the plants. I'm glad I went because one of our Swiss Chard plants was completely wilted and distressed. Hopefully it will make it. I could really feel the heat as I went in the middle of the day. Luckily photographing the bees distracted me as I slowly got cooked by the sun. After I finished watering I was quite happy to head back inside into the relatively cool house. After uploading my images I found three to share. All of these images were created with a Canon EOS 7D camera and a Tamron 180mm macro lens. God's blessings upon your weekend, chris #teamcanonusa, #withmytamron

Incoming!

This morning I set up a small platform feeder with black sunflower seed. I usually use this same feeder for photographing squirrels. Today I was intent on capturing the Band-tailed Pigeons as they came in to feed. Surprisingly I didn't have to wait very long. They started coming in to land in less than ten minutes after filling the bird feeder. I ended up making about two hundred images. My camera was set at ISO 1600 so that I could get a fast enough shutter speed to stop their wings. It was fun firing away as they came in. God's blessings upon your weekend, chris

More H.O.A.R.T.

H.O.A.R.T. (Hummingbird On A Redwood Twig)

What started as one session with the hummingbirds in the backyard evolved into a series. I found a small redwood twig to photograph the hummingbirds on and it snowballed from there. I ended up creating hundreds of images on the same little perch. Editing it down to just five images was quite a chore. All of these images were created with a Canon EOS 7D camera with a Canon 100-400IS v.1 lens. A  Canon 550 EX Speedlight was used for fill light. # teamcanonusa

Hummingbirds in My Backyard

This afternoon I created a quick set up in the backyard. I grabbed a small redwood twig attached it to a light stand. Then I placed it right up next to the hummingbird feeder. I moved my new hummingbird photoblind as close to the feeder as my lens would focus The hummingbirds were fighting to use the perch that I put up as soon as I was out of the way and in the blind.There were almost all Anna's Hummingbirds mixed up with one Allen's/Rufous Hummingbird. It was a male and he only used the perch twice so I never got a decent image of him. The hummingbirds were active until the lighting got too low for me to photograph. After editing these these were my four favorite images. God's light and love to all, chris    All images were created with a Canon EOS 7D MKII camera and a Canon 100-400IS v.1 lens. Fill flash was provided by a Canon 550 EX Speedlight. #teamcanonusa