Hummingbird Clarity

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While at Friday Harbor the hummingbirds were a centre of attention at the cabin. The feeder required filling 4 times a day, and there were often 4 birds feeding at once, with others waiting nearby. It made for a lot of displaying and other territorial behaviour. Interesting, and beautiful. I had processed these images in Lightroom 4, but went back to them in Topaz Clarity – the gallery below shows both versions, while the main body of the post has only the Clarity versions.

The shots were hand-held on an overcast day, and thus a higher ISO1000 was used, followed by quite heavy cropping to account for a shorter lens than ideal and thus the pictures are quite grainy. For the Topaz Clarity processing I used the Humming Bird II preset, but I adjusted the overall saturation back down to zero, and in some instances the overall luminance as well. Small adjustments too on the Micro Contrast slider (one of 4 contrast adjustments possible). Otherwise, I did not try to correct the faults that this preset introduced into these images. Even so, once again there is considerable gain with the Clarity software, and I expect I could have adjusted some of the areas that are too contrasty and have lost some detail.

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Last year I presented a series of shots, and  a video of this same feeder in action. I  would recommend watching the video with sound on as it gives a good idea of that dimension of this whole experience.  The stills and video are in this post.

I seem to have a lot of out of focus shots of the tails of humming birds rapidly retreating from the camera.

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For larger views of gallery below, click on any image, navigate with arrows and escape to return to this page.

 

Canon 5Dii, Canon 100mm/f2.8 macro lens, ISO1000, detailed EXIF data in gallery view.

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18 thoughts on “Hummingbird Clarity”

  2. Excellent shots – they create very well that high speed movement of the wings – beautifully captured. I can see the difference that Clarity produces. I now find I am using Topaz Detail as part of my normal processing – it really does sharpen detail to an extraordinary degree

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    • Hi Andy, thanks for the comment. I am finding Clarity very useful. Looks as if I will have to buy it. It is particular good for macros, of the things I have tested so far.

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    • That is an interesting thought. Around here there is nothing else at all like them – its really like they live in a different place than most other birds. They don’t seem to be viewed as food by any other birds, but probably would be if slower.

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  4. These are outstanding, especially considering shooting handheld. The Clarity adjustments are very subtle but I also like the Lightroom only adjustment photos, as well. Good bird photographers have my highest admiration.

    Last year I put a hummingbird feeder in the back yard but all it attracted was bees. The birds are here but i rarely see them so out went the feeder.

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    • Thanks so much Ken. It was one of those situations – trade off one kind of sharpness (low ISO) for another (high shutter speed). I quite like the grainy feel from the high ISO though, so it worked out OK. I too admire the good bird photography – it must take a huge amount of planning, patience and nature-knowledge to do a good job. I am short on all those fronts, so have to settle for human-acclimatised birds. I could probably take a decent picture of a pigeon too.
      I think that feeders can take a while to get established and become part of the daily round. It might be worth trying again, if you don’t mind the bees too much.

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