What equipment would I need to get this shot?

I would suggest that you set up some perches in your yard. Put some feeders and water. You are lucky to have such a big yard and that too in florida which is very good for birds. I would also suggest shooting from a portable blind setup in your yard. Check the messages in the essay forum.

Thanks. I do have bird feeders, etc. but would like more natural shots. I have talked about building a blind and I think that's the best bet.

What Bobby means is setting up feeders and then setting up (natural) perches near them. This will enable you to photograph the birds on the perches that they will usually land on before they go to the feeder. You could duct tape a perch right to the feeder for example. As far as hummingbirds, if you have a hummingbird feeder, you should set up and pre-focus on the feeder and wait for the hummingbird to fly, taking the picture as he hovers for a few seconds before getting a drink.

I feel your pain! My home is completely wooded behind and mostly wooded in front. Shooting out back is like being in a cave and nearly all shots are backlit. The front is better but not as easy to set up.

Like others have said, it's all about feeders and perches. If at all possible, place the feeders in an open area as far away from the big trees as possible. Pay close attention to the sun and put the feeder where the sun will be at your back or behind one shoulder or the other during your expected prime shooting times and locations. The more versatile you can be the better. Having it near smaller, sparsly limbed trees could work. Then get creative with perches. If you see an interesting perch candidate then cut it, buy it or pick it up and find a way to put it near the feeder. You can use planters, posts with holes in them, pvc pipes in the ground, duct tape or whatever. They should be simple (not many limbs), not trimmed by man in the area you want to shoot and not very thick. Always try to slant the perches at an angle and pointed quartering away from your shooting position to encourage the birds to land on "your side" of the perch.

When shooting, use a good tripod like a Bogen, Gitzo etc and a good ball head (I like the ones with a "pistol grip" because they are fast). The lens you have will get you "hooked" but leave you wanting more, especially for hummers and other small birds. You will get a few nice shots on bright days but to get consistently good shots you will eventually have to drop a few bucks on something with f/2.8 capability and bigger than 300mm (I use a 300mm f/2.8 with a 2x teleconverter which gives me 600mm f/5.6 and I wish I had more). ALWAYS have a good flash on your camera and use it 99% of the time. Learn from articles or others about how to balance flash exposure comp and camera exposure comp to produce flash filled shots that don't look flashed...it ain't easy but it's necessary for good shots. Handling the backlit birds throws a lot of exposure comp headaches in the mix and it still won't produce top notch shots. All this takes time and practice and effort and patience and trial and error and to some extent, money. If you like it you will have lots of fun getting there. If you aren't cut out for it you will know very soon. I can't stop! I'm addicted!

Good luck and good hunting.

I never really thought about placing the feeders, etc. for photo purposes. I'm big into telling people how to garden for wildlife so most of my feeders are back near the palmettos and brush, making them really bad for photos. I only really got into trying to take pictures because I'm a writer and its always easier to sell an article if you have photos. I need to re-learn an awful lot about photographer, but I don't understand how, if there isn't enough light with a 300mm lens, how it would possibly help to go to a 400mm lens and and extension, which would cut the light down even more. And I didn't even know there were flashes that would work shooting 20 feet into a tree, which just tells you how much I have to learn. Just took 150 more shots of the hummingbird in the tree and they are all probably rejects, but we'll see.
Here's a picture of a small part of our woods. Our back yard

The amount of usable light entering a lens is measured in f-stops. Some lenses are built specifically to gather as much light as possible. Your lens is a 300mm f/5.6 "as used" for the pic posted. My 300mm f/2.8 with the 2x TC becomes a 600mm f/5.6 "as used" so I get twice the magnification (which gives a bigger bird in the frame and better detail) with exactly the same amount of light (at f/5.6) coming through the lens. The trade off is cost and weight. The big lenses with f/2.8 capability are heavy and costly. They make 400mm f/2.8 lenses and 600mm f/4 lenses but they are several thousands of dollars and I can't afford them...yet. The front (called objective, as in closer to the object) lens determines the amount of light that can be gathered. The bigger the better. The front of a 300mm f/2.8 looks like this - pay no attention to the "loose nut" behind the camera:

A lot of that is still really confusing to me, but I appreciate the info. I did get some shots this time that I think might be okay if I tweak them a little. The difference is that I changed to ISO 800. the hummingbird actually sat there long enough for me to move through ISO 200 - 400 - 800. The 800's came out best.

Part of the reason I bought the Rebel is because I'm a small woman and a weakling.
The rebel is small and easy to hold. The lens I have now is still pretty manageable. So the cost is a factor but as they say, as for the rest of the details, size really does matter.

And my favorite saying when it comes to hobbies is:

"It only costs a whole lot more to go with the very best!"

Watch out for "graininess" (also called "noise") on those ISO 800 shots and a tripod makes almost any lens easy to hold.

Good luck.

How much are we talking about for a lens? $1200 or $5000. Or somewhere in between?

I'll buy a new tripod first. The one I have is an old KMart version that is pretty laughable. It moves around an awful lot for something that is supposed to be stationary.

Hi, Betsy! Welcome to NatureScapes.Net! No "booing" here - we are all passionate about our subjects and it's fun to meet new people with the same interests.

If you're getting the subjects into your backyard at feeders, it would probably be productive for you to set up a movable blind and set up lots of nice little perches around the feeders and water. This way they can perch before them come in on something nice and photogenic.

I think with a blind setup you might end up being able to photograph many of the birds with your existing focal length. If you are looking at equipment that can help you with your conditions, I would probably consider flash with flash brackets (the brackets help raise the flash up and reduce chances of "red" or "steel" eye). You can use a Better Beamer at focal lengths of 300mm + to help extend your flash range. A good tripod will help keep things steadier - a must-have for slow shutter speeds.

You can check out the NatureScapes.Net classifieds section - lots of photographers list their equipment for sale when they upgrade and you can get some good deals. We also have the NSN store (link towards the upper right corner of the forums) with the most popular Gitzo tripods in nature photography and also the Better Beamers (the Better Beamers would only be useful if you are using the 300mm focal length most of the time).

Hope some of this helps!

thanks again. I have never heard of a better beamer. I'll check into that. I use the lens at 300mm almost all the time.
I'll tell you all a quick "blind" story. I had a family of cooper's hawks on my property. This was before I got the Rebel. I just had a panasonic Lumix. Anyway, Cooper's hawks can be pretty aggressive. And I had three LARGE babies and two very protective parents that I wanted to get photos of. The parents would actually swoop down at me if the babies were around. So I setup my camping tent out back thinking that I would be able to get in the tent and take pictures. But when I got in the tent, the hawks decided that was their new hangout. I couldn't get out again! And I never did get any good pictures.
:roll:

Hi Betsy! The information that has already been provided is pretty good. Just needed to say that you *must* get a good tripod and a good ball head for it. That is the best start in my opinion and perhaps the most important piece of photo equipment; it will make your experience a lot more enjoyable and it will improve your images, no matter which camera or lens you might be using.

Thanks. I will do a little research and see what kind of tripod I can get for not too much money. And until I perfect some of my skills, I'll try to keep the limits of my equipment in mind. The hummingbird in the tree is probably a little out of the range of my equipment for now. I'll focus on some of the lower birds until I can get a better hang of everything.

If you set up a Hummingbird feeder in a good sunny location, you should be able to get some nice shots with the 300 lens. I have done it when that was the longest lens I had (300 f/5.6); it was very exciting to get Hummingbird images almost feeling the frame without the appropiate telephoto.
PS: *Always* keep in mind the background, it is an integral part of any capture.

Thanks. I have some great hummingbird in flight photos. I have a feeder right outside my office window and I have a remote for my camera. Would just love to get the shots of him in the tree. Just took a bunch more with my camera on the tripod but I forgot to turn off the image stabilization on the lens. Darn!!

I would also suggest that you put your signature in the edge of the picture and not in the middle...

I'm kind of surprised that the people that take really GOOD photos put their signature over on the side. Aren't you afraid someone will download your photo and pass it off as their own? I realize that particular photo isn't real good, but the ones that I take that ARE good, I don't want someone else taking them.

At the size and resolution posted here no serious stealing would be successful. The only thing these pics would be good for are kids school reports or for someone to use for show and tell and they won't buy anything anyway. I think the only serious use of a pic this size would be perhaps for greeting cards which I suppose could happen but a thief will find a way to steal no matter what.

Big Welcome Betsy !!!! You got the bird sharp and in a good pose ... when that little guy decides to come down you will nail him with a keeper !!!!

One other suggestion for you .... Viera Wetlands is not all that far from you and should give you lots of opportunities at eye level