Broadbilled Hummingbird. Santa Rita Lodge, Maderia Canyon, AZ

This might look like a multiple exposure flash shot, like many you have seen of hummingbirds in flight (these are Broadbilled Hummingbirds at Santa Rita Lodge in Maderia Canyon) but it is not. This is a collage of two images created in Coolage, with the feeder in the finished collage removed with TouchRetouch. The originals were shot with the Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view at 1/500th second, and edited in Lightroom. Not that it matters…the effect is much the same. 🙂 And I make no apologies for the digital manipulation. Apps like Coolage and TouchRetouch are tools, and it is the final image that matters. On the other hand, I am always right upfront as to the tools I use to create the image. I do think that is important.

The flight of hummers is always fascinating. The way they move their wings seems impossible. Because this is not a flash shot, the wings are naturally blurred, more as they appear to the naked eye, which, I think, adds to the reality of the shot.