The end of a very happy hour. Sure, most of the shots were NOT optimal. But I got the shot I was after, and my risky decisions in framing and focus paid off well.

The sequence numbers on this series are from 6444 to 6488, meaning that took 45 exposures, and retailed 38 of them in my archive.he eliminated shots may have been ones that I shot too quickly for the flash to charge for the next shot, or perhaps a test exposure of some kind, or a shot with no bird in the frame or so grossly out of frame that it wasn't worth keeping. My reflexes are slow. If I can do this, I think you can too, if you have frequent visitors to your feeder. On the other hand, the setup took hours, consisting of of custom built background stand, and sunshades, and multiple tripods for feeder, camera, and flashes (that's 6 tripods, total!, plus lumber, and some removable bluemasking tape, and maybe some hot glue, and some rope for lashing 2x2 pine background supports to a fence post and fence!). Teardown was quicker. Sessions with this many good shot opportunities in an hour are by no means uncommon, though the Lucufer Hummingbird is quite rare in the United States. It's seen regularly and quite reliably in season in Ash Canyon B&B. If and when I make it out west again, you will be sure that this is an essential stop in my itinerary. On this day I actually kept 132 exposures for my archive, actually shooting from 9 am to 9:10pm pm, with a break for lunch. Morning and evening are the rush hour, when the birds tank up after a long night, and have a big meal before heading for the roost in the evening. ashcanyon.com/ photo policy: http://ashcanyon.com/photography/