Bergamot and Hummingbirds, Vermont by Chris Fastie

Nikkor 55-200mm VR AF-S f/4-5....

My apologies to those whose knowledge of the fierce territoriality of Ruby-throated Hummingbirds might make the above scene a perplexing distortion of reality. Rarely will the local male allow birds others than his mate to use a food source in his territory, so a feeding flock like this is impossible, and has a biological spookiness to it, like cloned pets. In a sense, the distorted reality is due only to the integration over time that is a feature of all gigapan panoramas. It’s just highlighted here by selectively capturing the moments to integrate. This image is a record of one visit to my patio by a male (dark throat) and three visits by females (probably the same one, his mate).

Notes: The Epic 100 did not capture any birds in the panorama, so afterward I turned off the imager, set the D40 to continuous shutter at 1/1600 second and single area autofocus, and waited. One can get carried away with this, so I made sure to drop in birds (and insects) only where they were actually photographed in the scene.