Stop-Action Hummingbird Photography

Much of what I know about photography comes from stop-action hummingbird photography. I have summarized my experiences here in blog form. I am not looking to market, or sell, or otherwise gain any notoriety. I simply want to share what I have learned. Please be respectful, all text and images are copyrighted material and may not be reproduced without my approval.

 

My Journey began at the advent of the digital era. Many hours were spent walking the gardens with a long lens on a monopod. Early on, like everyone, I tried to see how close I might get to the birds. I learned about hummingbird behavior, and where to go to see them

 

I realized that even when perched these birds seem to be in constant movement. Shutter speed and depth of field always seemed to be at odds. On-camera flash helped in that it provided, in a practical sense, infinite light because there was enough light to shoot at high f#’s as long as I could get close. But backgrounds and composition became unnatural. I need more control of the situation.

 

Ultimately I achieved a solution which enabled complete control of the light. For me, the epiphany was understanding that multiple flashes of short duration were the best method for achieving this. I identified and evaluated commercial photography equipment that were suited to this purpose. Ultimately creating a portable, self-contained rig that could be easily transported to the field.

 

 

Image Quality

Image Quality – Sweet spot Sometimes, incredibly, you have to move back to see more. For the multiple flash work, I prefer to shoot at high f-numbers to display the entire set of wings in focus and within the depth of field. For most lenses, image quality begins to degrade with increasing f# starting at f/5.6. For the long telephoto lenses, it ge...
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Perspective

Perspective – Try going short. It is commonly thought that a short focal length lens will change the perspective of the subject, and it will, but what actually determines the perspective is the distance from the subject. Try a portrait at 400 and 40 mm, same distance in both cases. Why are the traditional portrait lenses in the 100mm range – bec...
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Alternatives

Alternatives to the Basic Frame Setup The Einstein flashes are capable of short duration flashes that equal the Canon or Nikon flashes at 1/32nd energy. Not quite short enough but they have perhaps six times the energy of the Canon flashes at 1/32nd energy. So, for the main lighting you can get by with two of them and at a larger distance, to boot...
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Illumination Strategy Back Light

Back (or “hair”) Light. A top or backlight, consisting of one or more flashes located out of the field of view, can make the bird image pop and stand out from the background. This is why a portrait photographer uses a light from behind to illuminate the subject’s head and shoulders. It does not take much. Try shooting a photo with just the back lig...
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Illumination Strategy Background

Background light. The background will in general be dark unless it is illuminated separately. The main lights will provide some background illumination but birds and flowers in the field of view will create shadows in the background. Backgrounds can be natural, or poster boards, or black if the background is far enough away. If you go out in the ga...
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Illumination Strategy Main Light

Illumination Strategy Main Light. A multiple flash setup for hummingbirds begs for a uniform illumination pattern over a fairly large area. My flashes are typically ~18 inches from the bird. With all the flashes working together, I try strive to uniformly illuminate an area 12 inches wide by 8 inches high, at the focal plane. This is area is appro...
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Putting it in Practice

Putting it in practice My basic setup consisted of six to nine Canon 550EX flashes. Four to six of these units comprised the main light, one or two were used to illuminate the background, and one was used as back or “hair” light. Lighting stands can be very cumbersome and you want to reduce the amount of hardware near the bird if at all possible....
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Practical Considerations

Practical Considerations The short duration flashes are so low energy that there is no way to overpower the sun, even at very close distances, so this hummingbird photography must occur at dawn, dusk, in shade, or a very overcast day. Since the flash synchronizes with the camera shutter, which is typically 1/250sec, ambient light must not provide...
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Flash Duration

Flash duration measurements Canon, Buff (Einstein), and Microflash Pro units were evaluated. I made these measurements were made with a sensor manufactured by Electro Optics Technology, a ET-3000 InGaAS (900-1600nm). While this sensor is not designed to operate in the visible wavelengths, flashes emit energy in the infrared that was used for the m...
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Flash Details

Flash Details In manual mode most commercial hot shoe flashes like the Canon EX and NIkon AB start fully charged. They fire and then cut out when the selected fraction of full energy has been used for the flash, resulting in a short duration pulse of light. Fortunately, after discharging a small amount of energy, the flash will not take long to fu...
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Freezing Flight

Freezing Flight Natural Light: Before you can consider freezing wing motion, there needs to be enough depth of field to even see the entire wing. Depth of field is subjective to a large extent, but a good starting point is 20mm for a 400mm lens @ f/2.8, 4 meters from the subject. And things scale from there. Depth of field will increase linearly w...
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The American Southwest

American Southwest / Bay Area The American Southwest is home to twelve or so hummingbird species. Some important areas in Arizona are: Santa Rita Mountains: Madera Canyon and Patagonia Huachuca Mountains: Ramsey, Miller, and Ash Canyons Chiricahua Mountains: Portal area, Cave Creek These locations are “sky islands,” with mountains rising sever...
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Early Inspiration

One of my early inspirations for hummingbird photography was the book: Hummingbirds, Their Life and Behavior, by Robert and Esther Tyrrell. This volume is the ultimate coffee table book of hummingbird photos. Done with film photography in the 1970’s and 1980’s, the Tyrrells had access to the latest stroboscopic lighting technology. In this volume t...
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COVID Swarm

Spring through Fall of 2020 and 2021 witnessed an unusual and unprecedented hummingbird swarm in the Bay Area, or at least in my yard. Numbers rivaled that of what I have seen in some of the Arizona hot spots. On my array of perhaps six feeders I routinely witnessed 20 birds present at a time. I found the nectar consumption numbers hard to believe...
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Does Flash Harm?

First, I want to say that I have tried very hard not to harm or disturb any birds in the course of my photography. Many of the techniques I describe utilize one or more flashes. It has been very difficult to find any objective information as to how the flashes may harm the birds. A literature search will not really find anything specific to humming...
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Content:

Does Flash Harm?

COVID Swarm

Early Inspiration

American Southwest

Freezing Flight

Flash Details

Flash Duration Measurements

Practical Considerations

In Practice

Illumination Strategy - Main Light

Illumination Strategy - Background

Illumination Strategy - Back Light

Alternatives - Portable Stop-action Rigs

Perspective

Autofocus

Image Quality

Flash for Perched Birds

Where to shoot, where to stay

Local Flora ID - Agapanthus to Zinnia

Gallery Highlights

Unusual behavior

 

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