Just Passing By

When the bee showed up at frame three of Sam Hung’s 12-shot sequence of the feeding Allen’s Hummingbird, the bird raised its tail slightly and the bee flew by. In Sam’s experience—he’s been an avid photographer of all species of birds for a dozen years—hummingbirds are generally wary of bees. “When they hear buzzing, they often move,” he says. Here, presumably, the bird had established unarguable territorial rights.

The photo was taken in Huntington Central Park in Huntington Beach, California, a location that attracts numerous birders and photographers. When the hummingbirds show up for the March bloom of the cherry blossoms, so do the shooters. Sam’s noticed that the number of photographers has increased significantly with the advent of digital photography.

For his long lens work, Sam relies on his AF VR Zoom-NIKKOR 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6D ED and the AF-S NIKKOR 600mm f/4D IF-ED II he used to take this photo. The camera was the D200, and the exposure was 1/2000 second at f/5, ISO 320. The D200 was set for aperture priority, center-weighted metering and +1/3 exposure compensation.

Sam uses a heavy-duty tripod; designed for a video camera, it’s fitted with a fluid pan head for a smooth, steady follow of birds in flight. He takes full advantage of the D200’s five frames-per-second continuous shooting and the ability of 1/2000 second to stop a hummingbird’s wing.