My first "good" picture of a hummingbird

by Rodrigue Spinette
(Kingston RI)

My wife and I have a feeder at home but have not seen a hummer there yet. We have been told it may take a while to get some visitors. I was thrilled to see some hummers at my workplace however. The building I am in has a rain garden and it is teeming with wildlife: butterflies, wasps, dragon flies, flowers of all kinds and of course hummers. I have attempted to take a picture of them for the last week or so and realized what a challenge that is. I am glad I am doing this with a digital camera and not with film!

I am using a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ7. I set the camera on aperture priority mode with an f stop of f8. The shutter speed is set by the camera to achieve proper exposure. I focus the camera manually because the autofocus on my camera has difficulty focusing on these little birds, especially in flight. I focus before hand on a branch or a flower that I have seen the bird come to frequently and then adjust right before snapping the picture.