Ruby-throated Hummingbird

[David_Aaron_Sercel]

Here is a hummingbird that I finished a few days ago.

[oldbearx2]

Hey David I only have one word to say WOW WOW WOW
Ok so I said it 3 times, but you are an excellent carver. That is a beautiful piece. I see some of the most amazing work on this site. have fun, carve oldbearx2

Harold

[AlArchie]

I think WOW says it all!

Al

[BobD]

<i'm speechless>

Bob

[carver6]

WOW!!!

[squbrigg]

'Good Lord.......I thank you!' 'You have bestowed an amaizing gift on that lad.'

Thank you for sharing that with us David. Well done.

Bob

[Bandaid]

Another great work of art David! I'm also impressed with the photos of your birds. The close ups show the details of your carvings so well. Could you share with us what camera you are using, I'm sure others in the group would be interested as well?...Reg

[AlArchie]

Yes, I agree...the carvings are all excellent, but I'd like to know the camers and technique, too.

Al

Another excellent piece David. A question though, it looks like the beak is the 'other end' of the vine stem, is it? If so what size tubing did you use?

Thanks!

Randy

[David_Aaron_Sercel]

For the background I use background paper that you can get from a camera supply in many colors. It comes in large rolls that will last you forever. To get a good smooth background I set a table up against a wall and hang the paper from the wall with pieces of tape and let it come down onto the table. Be sure to let it curve gently down onto the table to avoid a sharp corner where the table meets the wall, so it just kind of fades gradually from the horizontal surface of the table to the vertical surface of the wall. This will give the background a smother look and let it just fade into the background. For lighting I use three gooseneck lamps with 75 Watt ‘natural light’ light bulbs (they’re made by GE and are called “reveal” bulbs), two of which are clipped to the front edge of the table on either side of the carving and the third is attached to my camera tripod to provide light from the top. I keep adjusting the lights until I get rid of any shadows and illuminate the carving well. For my work I want the photos to show texture well so I arrange the lights to the sides so that they cast shadows in the feather texture and show it better. If the lights were directly in front of the carving these shadows in the texture would not be visible and the carving would look smoother. You don’t want to use the camera’s flash for lighting because it will cast harsh shadows on the background. It also gives the picture a cold feel because of the bluish light that most flashes have.

My camera is a Kodak DX6490 4 Megapixel digital camera. I used it on macro mode and set the f-stop to 2.8, the shutter speed to 1/250, and the ISO setting the 80. Also, I had a polarizing filter on the camera to deepen the colors a little and had a lens hood attached to cut down on any glare on the lens from the lights. Using the smaller f-stop setting (the size of the camera’s aperture - a smaller f-stop denotes a bigger aperture so that, for instance, an f-stop of 2.8 would be a larger aperture then an f-stop 5.6) will give a much smaller depth of focus (the range that the camera focuses on) so that when the carving is in focus everything else in front of and behind it will be left out of focus and blurry. That will help to make the carving ‘pop’ off the background, and with it being the only thing that is in focus any detail on it look even sharper. I also use a tripod to keep it steady.

David