I would suggest you try Nations Photo Lab. Excellent product and they are always having sales. Their prints are often 40% off and the calendars & canvases I have had printed there are beautiful. Their customers service is awesome as well.

I shoot hummingbirds routinely, the only time I use a tripod w/gimbal is if I’m going to be staking out an area for extended periods of time. And even then, I end up taking my gear off the tripod so I can follow their movement precisely. The rest of the time it’s handheld, 1/1000 minimum, f/6.3 or 7.1, single point focus and auto ISO. I shoot with a Nikon D750 and Nikkor 200-500mm f/5.6 lens mostly at 500mm. (I also use back button focus, which allows me to track them continuously while attempting to get them in focus.) It still requires a lot of cropping to get closeups at that focal distance and I’m usually 10-20’ away. I watch their behavior — going in and out of the feeders and try to catch them hovering. I know you don’t want to buy more equipment but I found that shooting with my 70-200mm lens at 200mm was just too far away for such a small subject. I would suggest you sit as close as you can to the feeders/flowers and get them used to you being nearby. I sometimes use my bent knee to stabilize my gear until they come into view — then I don’t startle them when I raise my camera to take a shot. After awhile, they don’t even notice me. I get about 20% keepers because of how fast they move and my desire to get the eye in focus but the few good ones are enough to make my time worth it. Shooting with a cable release and through glass will not result in good images, IMO. Best of luck to you, it does take a lot of practice. These shots were taken at 1/2000, f/7.1, ISO 220, 500mm edited in LR and cropped to about 1/9th of the frame.

I haven’t posted here in awhile and this thread makes me realize why I don’t come here much anymore. Too many threads with discussions about what others people do/buy and complaints about whatever. Sometimes ya’ll sound like a gaggle of curmudgeons sitting on the front porch griping about anything you can come up with!

While I do learn something from this site now and then, most of the time the conversations are useless except to those who want to spout their opinions. So I’ll spout mine:

No offense to the OP, but I imagine this post was only meant to initiate conversation … my input is, who cares? If someone else wants to chase the latest and greatest, it’s no skin off my nose and shouldn’t bother anyone else either. A photographer is not in any way affected by what others are using so I don’t even know why we have discussions like this…ad nauseum.

Use what makes you happy. Got a question? Ask it. And hopefully you won’t get some of the snarky answers I’ve witnessed on UHH (another reason I don’t post questions here). You want new gear? Buy it and don’t feel the need to defend your decisions. Just go out and shoot whatever you want with whatever gear you own. It’s a great time to be a
photographer and every person here has different reasons for their photography decisions.

Now…how do I get on the waiting list for that new Nikkor 400mm f/2.8??? 😉

After much research, I purchased the Sigma Art 24-105 f/4 as my "walk around" lens for my Nikon D750. Outstanding sharpness and it gets most every shot I want when I'm not sure what I will be shooting.

Thanks for posting these -- we went to Bosque del Apache Reserve in NM to catch the Sandhills, but didn't get to witness a fly-in or fly out, unfortunately. One day, we will have to make it up to Nebraska to see this spectacle.

I'm an Okie too, by the way -- have some family in the Clinton/Cordell area. Good people out there in western Oklahoma!

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Fiddlemaker -- they each have their qualities. I bought Darrell Young's book first and after reading about Dave Busch's approach, picked up his Field Guide to throw in my camera bag (as I am sure I will need to reference it while out shooting). Great reviews on both -- Some reviews challenge the format of DY's book but I thought it was great -- I didn't read it like a novel from front to back, only looked up the areas that I was most unfamiliar with and his explanations, illustrations and recommendations (plus the quality of the printing) was excellent. The Busch book has additional information and a bit different approach, equally as helpful. It is smaller and spiral bound but not quite as durable as I expected -- we shall see how it holds up to my abuse. Together, I find they compliment each other very well. As I mentioned, moving to the Nikon D750 presented a huge learning curve for me, so having 2 books on my camera is not overkill in the least!

A game-changing move, at least for me! I upgraded to a D750 from a Canon T3i and although the learning curve was steep (and expected) I couldn't be happier with the camera -- and if you do go with one, I highly recommend either Darrel Young or David Busch's books on it to fully appreciate and understand its powerful features. I bought mine in November, 2015 and it has not been involved in any of the recalls.

I own the Sigma Art 50mm 1.4 -- and it is every bit as fantastic as the reviews say. Twice as much $$ as the Nikon and it hurt a little to pull the trigger on it, but that only lasted until I put it on my D750 and saw what it could do.

I have to thank you for starting this thread -- I clicked on the links provided by several people responding to your request for info, which lead me to the link for the Great Smokey Mountain Photography Summit website. I have a dear friend who lives in that area, so we are now planning for me to visit and both of us will be attending the summit on Oct. 26-30, 2016. We never would have known about this, if not for your post, so thank you again! And here is the link, for anyone interested:

https://tgsmps.wordpress.com

And Cade's Cove is on our list of activities, as well :thumbup:

This is a map of the area of visibility for the upcoming eclipse. Maybe North America will have better luck viewing it for the next one in August, 2017 👍🏻

Hi Fran,
Not sure how you intend to use your flash, but I have a Nikon D750 and plan to rarely shoot indoors (or need a fill flash) so I don't intend to invest in a flash system until the need arises. Since the D750 has an on-camera flash, over the holidays I used it indoors with "Prof. Kobre's Lightscoop" to diffuse the flash upwards. It was surprisingly effective and I took a number of before and after shots, just to see the real difference. It only works if you have a ceiling of typical height and if you turn the camera to portrait orientation, it must have a solid object to bounce off from the side. They give very specific settings to use, which I recommend following to get the best results. It's kind of spendy at $30 but it did the trick for me and achieved some nice, diffused lighting of people and pets for the occasional indoor shots without a lot of investment.

Thanks so much! I will give those settings a shot. Before I moved to the D750, I had taken some semi-decent moon shots with my T3i and Tamron 18-270 f/3.5-6.3 but nowhere near the amount of detail you captured. Appreciate the help!

Marian

Excellent! Mind if I ask what lens you used? I love to shoot the moon and I'm pretty sure I need something longer than my 70-200 to get this much detail. Thank you for sharing!

You'll love it! I did a ton of research on which lens to start out with on my new D750 (upgrade from a Canon T3i). After reading everything I could on every website I could find about lenses in this approximate focal range, this is the one I ended up choosing, even though the Nikon 24-120 was included in a really good package deal with the D750. You can't go wrong with this lens -- enjoy! (And I added the Sigma Art 50mm 1.4 not long afterwards -- this "Art" line from Sigma is the real thing.)

Yes but I would strongly suggest you invest in Darryl Young's "Mastering the Nikon D750" book. It's so far beyond what the owner's manual will tell you, written in a clear and understandable style, and he is considered one of the best in the field of writing camera "guidebooks". His explanations of all the powerful features of the D750 and suggestions for settings are worth their weight in gold.