Extremely elusive, I tracked the mating pair around for a week till I got some usable images. Wild Bird photography is not for the easily disheartened! Photographed in KZN near Assegay / Hillcrest. (Note: No feeders used to attract the birds!)
Amethyst Sunbird (m) on Honeysuckle © Harvey Grohmann 2013 All Rights Reserved
Shot details: Nikon D7000 and Sigma 100-300mm F/4.0 EX IF HSM.
In the shade so centre weighted average metering.
ISO-1600 f/6.3 and 1/800s on Tripod. Cropped 50%. Curves, Topaz Labs DeNoise 5.
This male Amethyst Sunbird is extremely tiny and very elusive (in the wild) and due his predominantly black feathers, stays out of the sunlight like the plague making accurate overall exposure WITH feather detail very challenging. After spotting them I tracked the mating pair around for a week till I got some usable images. I will add the female next week 
I prefer to portray an animals environment with the shot as this provides scale and interest. They are so small that even with a telephoto (my 300/450mm or my 500/750mm) I have to be within a few (2) meters to get them occupying 50% of the frame. This male would not let me get closer than about 5 meters. One of the reasons why I recently acquired a near new D7000 which has 30% more pixels and a higher pixel density per mm² than my D90/D300s. Naturally the 1.5x crop factor when using full frame glass helps too.
Whilst it is all to easy to attract then with sugar water feeders I do not like the hand of man in my wildlife images. No feeders or other tricks used to attract my birds.
This is a lifer for me (1st sighting of this species) and I hope you enjoy my portrayal of him.
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Gear I use: Bodies: Nikon D-SLR’s / Lenses: Nikon, Sigma, Tokina, Vivitar
Filters: Hoya UV & Polarizing / Flash: Nikon Speed-lights / Bag: Lowe Pro
Tripods & Heads: Manfrotto / Grips, Triggers, Timers, Batteries etc: BandH
Editing Plug-in: Topaz Labs Noise Reduction, HDR, B&W Conversion & more!
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