Hummingbirds

[MarkBarbieri]

My oldest is just getting over some sort of disease, so we've been sitting around my parents house letting him rest. I decided to spend the time shooting hummingbirds. I shot on a 7D using a 300mm lens. I tried a variety of techniques and finally settled on shooting in manual mode with the camera at max flash sync (1/250) and the aperture around f/8 and the ISO at 800. I lit the birds with two off camera flashes diffused through shoot thru umbrellas. I also used the on camera flash from the 7D.

To get the birds to pose, I took down every feeder but one. On that one, I taped over every feeding hole but one. That funneled all of the birds into a "kill zone". I set up the flashes around the kill zone, stood back, and shot the little guys.

Ideally, I would have preferred a few more flashes. With more flashes, I wouldn't have needed the umbrellas and each flash would have been able to fire at much lower power. A lower power flash shot is faster, so it would have done a better job of stopping the motion.

 

[Tuffcookie]

Mark, I am impressed!!! Beautiful shots!!!

TC

 

[MICKEY88]

Ideally, I would have preferred a few more flashes. With more flashes, I wouldn't have needed the umbrellas and each flash would have been able to fire at much lower power. A lower power flash shot is faster, so it would have done a better job of stopping the motion.

I really like the way these turned out
I think the best hummingbird photos , show some motion, otherwise they just kind of look like other bird shots..

 

[Gianna'sPapa]

Great shots and like MICKEY88, I like the motion effect because otherwise they could be stuffed birds! That shows that they are real and flying. Again great images.

 

[ChiSoxKeith]

Just awesome.

 

[Frantasmic]

Excellent shots! I like the idea of reducing the feeding slots to match your camera set-up. Very clever.

Is the black background your umbrellas?

I think your "over the shoulder" view on the last one is brilliant.

The tag fairy should add Hummingbird Wrangler to your tags.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

Great shots and like MICKEY88, I like the motion effect because otherwise they could be stuffed birds! That shows that they are real and flying. Again great images.

A bit of motion is good, but I've got much more than I'd like. I did have a chance to shoot a stunned hummer. It ran into the wall of the house. My mother picked it up and put it on the deck rail. I decided not to shoot it because I didn't think it needed any more stress. It eventually recovered and flew away.

Excellent shots! I like the idea of reducing the feeding slots to match your camera set-up. Very clever.

Is the black background your umbrellas?

I think your "over the shoulder" view on the last one is brilliant.

The tag fairy should add Hummingbird Wrangler to your tags.

I've learned some things from raising children. When you can't get something to do what you want, you reduce its options until it makes a good choice.

The black background is really a bunch of trees in the distance. It looks black because the hummers are lit primarily by flashes to the sides of them. That lights them up well but leaves very little light for the background. It's similar to the effect you get when using a ring flash for macro. It's better than a really busy background, but not as nice as a heavily blurred background.

Hardcore hummer shooters solve this problem by putting a board painted to look like out of focus bushes behind the kill zone. It gets lit by the flashes but looks like pleasant bokeh. They use a fairly narrow aperture to ensure that they get wingtip to wingtip of the hummer in focus.

Just about every beautiful hummingbird picture you see in a magazine or online is completely staged. They use the fake background technique. They use a half dozen flashes to freeze the motion. The flower the hummer is feeding from actually masks a tube to a feeder. Like so many natural looking things in photography, it's all staged.

 

[Uncle Greg]

Nice stuff Mark. The ones with the greenish backgrounds are giving me some odd banding though.

Funny, just yesterday I ran across an older Strobist article featuring a guy who did a bunch of hummingbird shots.

Check out his set-up.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Bf48JKOl5HQ/SZH0oHO52LI/AAAAAAAABJU/3l6nLtnNlgQ/s1600-h/setup2.jpg

 

[MICKEY88]

A bit of motion is good, but I've got much more than I'd like. I did have a chance to shoot a stunned hummer. It ran into the wall of the house.

ummm was he blinded by the flash

 

[YesDear]

The pictures are great as usual Mark. I hope your son is ok?!

 

[Tuffcookie]

Mark Barbieri wrote: I've learned some things from raising children. When you can't get something to do what you want, you reduce its options until it makes a good choice.

This bit of wisdom should be handed out to all new parents leaving the hospitals with their babies!

TC

 

[Bstanley]

First - Wow, excellent pictures, very kewl.

Second - how far away from the little guys was the camera?

Third - with all the heartburn about full-frame versus crop camera quality why did you choose to go with the 7D versus the 5D?

 

[MarkBarbieri]

First - Wow, excellent pictures, very kewl.

Second - how far away from the little guys was the camera?

Third - with all the heartburn about full-frame versus crop camera quality why did you choose to go with the 7D versus the 5D?

According to the EXIF, I was between 2.75 and 3 meters from the birds.

I chose the 7D for a few reasons. First, it has an on-camera flash. I could have used the flash controller on the 5D, but then I'd only have 2 flashes instead of 3. The more flashes you have, the less each has to work. The less they have to work, the shorter the flash duration and the less motion blur you get. I'm not sure if the on-camera flash on the 7D was fast enough to make a difference.

I also used the 7D because it autofocuses better. It is faster and covers a wider area. The birds teleport all over the place and you need to fire quickly to get them.

Finally, the 7D has a marginally faster max sync speed (1/250 vs 1/200), but I don't imagine that made any meaningful difference.

If I set up to try again, I think I'm going to try the 5D. I had outrageous waits between shots on the 7D and I wonder if that might be the on-board flash taking a long time to recharge.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

I finished processing all of the Hummingbird shots from my trip. You can see them here if you are inclined.

 

[vandort]

Beautiful pictures, Mark. Thanks for sharing.

 

[vandort]

Beautiful pictures, Mark. Thanks for sharing.