When I got home there were about 10 hummingbirds fighting over feeder rights and it just happened to be that brief period of the day when the sun is falling on the feeder.
woooo arty
I spent about half an hour standing right next to the feeder with a couple different lenses, trying different exposure options, etc. Mostly experimenting with shutter speeds and backgrounds. Took about 200 pictures, 40 of which I like. I've uploaded them to the Broad Tailed Hummingbird and Rufous Hummingbird galleries. Have a look at the later images in the gallery; there's old stuff at the beginning of each one.
Wow... gorgeous.
So is ending up with a black background just the narrow dof, or what?
Actually, I just hung a black blanket inside the sliding glass door the feeder hangs in front of, and shot at an angle so it wouldn't get any reflections in frame. :)
The birds were hungry enough that I could move around and change stuff and they'd keep coming back.
Beautiful shots. I think if you put a red sunscreen on your camera these guys would fly inside the lens.