Broad-Tailed Hummingbirds in Southern Nevada

© Mac Danzig

I was fortunate enough to live near an area of the Southwest this summer that many migrating Broad-Tailed Hummingbirds passed through.    During a two-week period, I was able to capture a few keepers that I’d like to share.

A few of these were handheld, but most were tripod mounted.  All were taken with the Canon 1Ds MkII and 300mm 2.8 IS lens.  Some were also taken with a 1.4 Extender attached.  As a normal practice for me, I chose not to use flash for any of these and only use natural light, waiting patiently for the right combination of bird position and sunlight.  (that’s fancy talk for “I suck at using a flash, so I usually don’t bother with it”)

Post-processing was minimal and included normal color and levels adjustments and occasional cropping.   Please click each photo for a larger view.

© Mac Danzig

I actually had quite a hard time identifying these as Broad-Tailed due to the fact that many birds in the Selasphorus genus look similar, including Calliope, Broad-Tailed and Roufus.   Add to that, the fact that these particular birds are all either female or juveniles, they are also easily mistaken for Black-Chinned Hummingbirds, due mostly to the many non-distinct features.

© Mac Danzig

The trees in which many hummingbirds prefer to rest in are thick with foliage, which makes it easy for them to hide from predators.  Since I don’t believe in pruning (especially if nests are present) it was extra difficult to obtain the proper angles for some of these shots since most of the time, the birds try to position themselves out-of-sight, with leaves and branches obstructing my view.  For the same reasons, good lighting also proved difficult to obtain at times…

© Mac Danzig

A particular pair of birds (a mother and juvenile) spent a good amount of time feeding and resting in a particular area and one afternoon I captured a great series of behavioral shots where the mother continually returned to her calling juvenile to feed it insects she had caught…   Here are some of those shots:

© Mac Danzig

© Mac Danzig

© Mac Danzig

© Mac Danzig

One aspect that proved frustrating was the lack of a rich background during many of these shots…  I often found many times that the birds were backlit, despite my best attempts at capturing the sun’s best angle.  One thing that helps a great deal is using in-camera Spot Metering.   This is why the vast majority of professionals who shoot hummingbirds often utilize multiple off-camera flashes…

© Mac Danzig

© Mac Danzig

Thanks for looking

-Mac

Featured Photo – Powder on Red Rock

© Mac Danzig

Technical Data:

Camera:  Canon 1Ds Mk II

Lens:  Canon 100mm f2.8 Macro

Exposure:  1/2500 sec

Aperture:  f/5.6

ISO:   200

About the photo:

It may be January but in Los Angeles lately it hasn’t felt much like the cold, snowy winter I know and love from my days  growing up in the northeast.  My affinity for the winter months made me remember a rare photo from last year that I wanted to share.

Rarely does it ever snow in the greater Las Vegas area, but last year around this time while I was living in West Las Vegas, we were treated to 2 days of actual, real snowfall.    Luckily at the time, I lived less than ten minutes from Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area.  I woke up the morning after the snow day and the light was beautiful and the sky clear.   I had to be at the gym for training at 8am, so I left early, took a detour and drove into the mountains heading for the large group rock formations in Red Rock Canyon, which are the major feature of the Keystone Thrust Fault.

What I found was a seldom-seen view of these normally dry, sun-baked desert mountains, completely covered with a dusting of snow, and a group of low, slow-moving clouds hovering at the peaks.  The light was still good at 7:30 and I used my 100mm prime lens (handheld) to get the shot.

Online, I don’t post the full-resolution version of any of my photos for obvious reasons and this web-size does the original 4900×3300 pixel image zero justice , but if you look closely at the larger version, you can see just a small amount of the detailed captured in this shot.  Yes, those are trees in the upper middle part of the mountain.  That can give you a sense of scale to the size of this giant fault.

Thanks for looking

-Mac

Featured Photo – “The Truck Stops Here”

Technical Info

Camera:  Canon 5D

Lens:  17-40mm f/4 L @ 17mm

Exposure:  1/1000

Aperture: f/4

ISO:  400

Software:  Adobe Lightroom, Adobe CS2

About the Photo

The “Ghost Town” of Nelson, Nevada is not a far drive from greater Las Vegas.  I’m always interested in this type of place, so naturally with me living in Vegas for almost 2 years, I had to visit at least once.

I wouldn’t call it a true Ghost Town.  It still has inhabitants, and is located along a route that leads to an area of the Colorado River just south of Lake Mead that sees a decent amount of recreational traffic.    So, this place full of old remnants, doesn’t have the isolated, enchanting feeling that a lot of real ghost towns have, but if you’re in Southern Nevada, it’s worth a stop.

This disused and abandoned truck was in a gravel lot which included some antique gas pumps, an old out-house, and some other dead vehicles.  (You can see an old water reservoir in the background)…   Of all the stuff I looked at here, this truck seemed the most photogenic.  The sun had just set behind the hills in the distance when I took this, so the backlighting was not that big of an issue.  I exposed for the sky and then pulled the shadows back out in Camera Raw.   Even though there were some great colors in the scene, especially with the truck’s many colorful peeling layers of paint, I finally decided on Black and White for this one and I feel it suits the mood best.

Thanks for looking

-Mac

The long road out of DeLamar

© Mac Danzig

Technical Data:

Camera:  Canon 400D

Lens:  100-400 L @ 160mm

Exposure:  1/640 sec

Aperture:  f/8

ISO:  400

Story Behind the Photo:

This is what the last of Delamar, Nevada’s residents saw as they abandoned the old mining town in 1909…  Facing west, this is the only way back out.

Delamar was nicknamed “the Widowmaker” because the gold mined from the town was embedded in quartzite, and the process to separate the gold resulted in dust that contained fragments of rock that scarred the lung tissues of anyone who breathed it – and caused death within months.  (Silicosis)
Nearly all of the men who mined in Delamar eventually died from this and it is estimated that at one time there were over 400 widows living in the town… Needless to say, it’s a ghost town now and a fairly hard-to-find one as well.

The road to and from Delamar is beautiful and remote. We even saw some wild horses on the way back right before this picture was taken… I unfortunately didn’t get any acceptable shots of the ruins themselves due to hard mid-day light.  Delamar is a place that I definitely need to re-visit and hopefully spend at least one night at, to get some good night time long-exposures.

 

 

thanks for looking

-Mac