We have a summer resident female rufous hummingbird that often visits the feeders and plants that we place for them on our deck. As their migratory season comes to an end, which sadly means we’re entering into the early throes of autumn here in the Pacific Northwest, I thought I might test out my Canon 7D with the 70-300mm that I’ve been using on assignment lately. I bitterly complained about the auto-focus when I first purchased the camera and, as usual, it was trial by fire. I knew that I needed to have a higher fps than my Canon 5D Mark II cameras, so I decided to go with the 7D. Now that I’ve been shooting it for a while, (and after reading a bit of the manual 
, I am now really loving the autofocus system and, although the camera is noisy at the higher ISO’s, it’s still pretty darn good. The other night we were out on the deck and the female rufous came by to check out the salvia and other flowers. She hung around long enough for me to get a few snaps. These were all made at iso 6400 shooting in aperture priority. I processed them in Adobe’s Lightroom using some capture sharpening and luminance noise reduction and I must say I’m impressed. The focus is tack sharp, the shutter speed was fast enough to stop most of the movement and the colors look beautiful. I do enjoy birdwatching and although it’s only a simple hobby that I do at home, it’s fun to use this as an opportunity to practice outside of assignment work. I hope you enjoy these little snapshots of the wee bird.
female rufous hummingbird perched in a Western Cedar tree in the Marquam Greenspace in Portland, Oregon
Female rufous hummingbird investigating the salvia on our porch
Female rufous hummingbird investigating the salvia on our porch, showing off her diminutive gorget
