A Calliope Hummingbird....Finally!

[Doug Brown]

I've wanted to get a nice frame of Calliope Hummingbird in a multiflash setup for a number of years. This past weekend my wish came true! I was co-leading a hummingbird workshop at a private home in Santa Fe, and the workshop was timed to coincide with peak Calliope activity. The house is quite a remarkable hummingbird magnet; ornithologists have estimated that between 1,500 and 2,000 hummingbirds feed there everyday!

116348

Canon 5D Mark III, 70-300 L @ 300mm, f/14, 1/160, ISO 320, manual exposure, 4 flashes total, tripod

[Ofer Levy]

Nice pose and composition. Maybe this can be improved with more processing but as presented the image looks too flashed to me - especially the flower. I guess the real challenge in multi flash technique is to avoid the 'flash/studio look' and this wasn't achieved in here IMHO.

[Joe Senzatimore]

Your wish comes true. If you only have one image of this species in your files , this is the one. SWEET!!!!!

[Sachin Saraf]

Doug, beautiful composition on this one. Amazing to see how one can freeze the wing flap of HB at 1/160 with multi flash setup.Any reason not to bump ISO for higher SS?

[Mark Corpe]

It's a beautiful shot. Is it really 1/160 sec?

[Doug Brown]

Nice pose and composition. Maybe this can be improved with more processing but as presented the image looks too flashed to me - especially the flower. I guess the real challenge in multi flash technique is to avoid the 'flash/studio look' and this wasn't achieved in here IMHO.

I agree with you about the flower, but the bird looks good to me. It can be difficult to avoid a flashed look on flowers, especially when you have a limited number of flower types to choose from. We had only 2 different kinds of flowers in the garden, and the birds were attracted to this one in particular. The other problem in this setup was that our ability to move the flashes was severely limited by the landscape. Fine-tuning the light is much easier when you can freely position your flashes relative to the bird and the flower. Appreciate the honest and accurate critique.

[Doug Brown]

Doug, beautiful composition on this one. Amazing to see how one can freeze the wing flap of HB at 1/160 with multi flash setup.Any reason not to bump ISO for higher SS?

Multiple flash hummingbird photogrpahy uses flash as main light to freeze the wings of a hummingbird. All that is required of your shutter speed is that it's set slower than your camera's sync speed. You underexpose in camera by at least 3 stops and let your flashes do all the work. The flashes are set in manual mode and the power is set to a fraction of full power (in this case 1/16 power). The flash duration at 1/16 power is around 1/10,000 of a second. Because your camera settings produce a dark frame in the absence of flash, the flash duration becomes your effective shutter speed. That's how you can freeze a hummingbird's wings at 1/160.

[Don Nelson]

As Doug said, the bird is fine. Very nice Comp.
If you check the red channel in PS, you will see it is blown on the flowers only. Should be recovered with a little PS work.
116352

[Dan Brown]

Great work, Doug! I see detail in the reds of the flower. Looks good to me. I think it looks like a studio hummer shot because you told us it is!:c3:

[Melvin Grey]

Very nice image Doug. With regard to Ofer's comment - it is imperative to get the gorget of the male Calliope well lit, as it is here. This rather dictates the positioning of the flash lights and sometimes the flowers have to suffer and not be as well lit as we would like them to be. Sometimes it is possible to mask off the flower from the frontal f/gun needed to light the iridescent gorget. Again a very nice image and nice vary toned BG.

[Sachin Saraf]

Multiple flash hummingbird photogrpahy uses flash as main light to freeze the wings of a hummingbird. All that is required of your shutter speed is that it's set slower than your camera's sync speed. You underexpose in camera by at least 3 stops and let your flashes do all the work. The flashes are set in manual mode and the power is set to a fraction of full power (in this case 1/16 power). The flash duration at 1/16 power is around 1/10,000 of a second. Because your camera settings produce a dark frame in the absence of flash, the flash duration becomes your effective shutter speed. That's how you can freeze a hummingbird's wings at 1/160.

Thanks for sharing your knowledge Doug, really appreciate it.

[Bill Dix]

Lovely image with great wing position and fully displayed gorget, nicely shown with the flash setup. I can see Ofer's point, and might be tempted to tone down the highlights in the flower only, leaving the beautiful hummer as posted. Thanks for the lesson in flash exposure.

[Jonathan Lethbridge]

This is awesome. I dream of being able to photograph hummingbirds. Even if I could, I would not get close to this standard.
Yes the flower looks too shiny, but who cares, the bird is fantastic.
Jonathan

[Karl Egressy]

Great composition and the bird is a little gem, Doug.

[Markus Jais]

Stunning shot with great wing pose and excellent sharpness in the bird.

Markus

[Satish Ranadive]

Every thing has been said about this marvelous image with lovely composition.
Love every thing in the frame.

Regards,
Satish.

[Frank Schauf]

Excellent shot with very nice soft background, Doug.

[arash_hazeghi]

great pose and nice details. might try to recover the red channel as Don showed above.

[Greg Basco]

Doug, what a cool species and congrats on getting it. You mentioned the difficulty in positioning the flashes, and I think that's the source of the issue Ofer mentioned. To me, it's not so much that there's too much or too little flash but rather the quality of the flash. In this case, my honest critique would be that I just can't find a logical direction for the light and shadows given the placement of the main catchlight that you left (which is in a good position IMO). You are absolutely right that lighting up the bird in a natural way in these setups is really pretty easy, and I think the bird looks quite nice, though I would wish for a hint of shadow on the belly. Adding in flowers adds geometrically to the lighting degree of difficulty, particularly if you are limited on where you can place your flashes.

Cheers,
Greg

[Amol Khedgikar]

Doug, beautiful composition on this one. Amazing to see how one can freeze the wing flap of HB at 1/160 with multi flash setup.Any reason not to bump ISO for higher SS?

My thoughts eaxactly...in theory 1/160 is loow low to freeze their wings....may be the daylight and the flashes helped? Care to elaborate?

[Doug Brown]

See my explanation above.

[Doug Brown]

Thank you all for the feedback!