Violet-Crowned Woodnymph

[Linda Robbins]

I photographed this hummingbird at the wonderful Canopy Lodge in Panama. I used a hummingbird set up with 5 remote flashes, an artificial background, and one on-camera flash. I placed sugar water into the blossoms at my set up to attract the birds and get natural poses at flowers. However in this image, the flower looked very wilted, and I used a Quick Mask to redo the flower. You can learn Quick Masking techniques in Robert O'Toole's APTATS.

Camera Model: Canon EOS-1D Mark II
Shutter speed: 1/250 sec
Aperture: 22
Flash: On
Metering mode: Evaluative
Drive mode: Continuous (high): frame 1
ISO: 640
Lens: 500mm
Focal length: 500mm

[Dieter Schaefer]

What's there not to like? Thanks for the setup explanation - I was wondering about the 1/250sec shutter speed and the lack of motion blur on the wings.

[Leroy Laverman]

With 5 flashes the effective exposure should be limited by the flash duration with will be much shorter that 1/250 sec. I don't know the flash durations but I'll bet Linda does.

Lovely colors on the bird and flower. I think a more colorful background could be nice as well. Dark green maybe?

[Jim Poor]

Wow, that's beautiful. My only nit would be the bright area behind (to our right) of the blossom.

I'm wondering about the sort of power the flashes need for this. Would the SB-R200 close up flashes from Nikon be powerful enough or are we talking about full up SB-800 type flashes?

[Axel Hildebrandt]

This is beautiful. Excellent lighting, pose and details. I would prefer to see the entire blossom and leaf.

[Manos Papadomanolakis]

Great shot,excellent in all respects!!!

[Juan Aragonés]

Hi Linda this is a terrific image, great sharpness and fantastic timing. Well done

[Linda Robbins]

Jim -
I recommend flashes with a guide number of at least 115. You can use lower power flashes, but they must be closer to the subject and it can be difficult to keep the flash heads out of the image.

[Fabs Forns]

Sweet, Linda, I like the "over the shoulder" look :)
The feather color is incredible

[Linda Robbins]

With 5 flashes the effective exposure should be limited by the flash duration with will be much shorter that 1/250 sec. I don't know the flash durations but I'll bet Linda does.

Lovely colors on the bird and flower. I think a more colorful background could be nice as well. Dark green maybe?

Leroy -

Thanks for your comments. You are correct. 1/250 is the camera setting. The exposure is made with the light from the remote flashes which are generally giving me effective shutter speeds of 1/8000 to 1/20000 sec. depending upon the f stop I have chosen.



To understand how this works, I think it helps if you think about the shutter being open for 1/250 of a sec. in total blackness. (A very long time when you compare it to the effective shutter speeds the flashes are providing!) While the shutter is open, the remote flashes fire at say 1/16000 sec.- a fraction of the time the shutter is actually open, -and the light from the flashes makes the exposure. The shutter is still open in total blackness after the remote flashes have fired at 1/16000 of a sec. I hope this helps those who are a bit confused by the settings!

I use a variety of backgrounds. Dark green is usually not a good choice however, because so many hummingbirds have dark green plumage that gets a bit lost against dark green backgrounds. Nice backgrounds are the most difficult part of hummingbird photography!

[Glenn Price]

Beautiful capture! I love the subtle color shift in the bkg.

[Gus Cobos]

Excellent capture....:)

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

I love this image, this is a beautiful hummer and you are for sure showing all its beauty. Thanks for sharing this image.

[Gerald_Gilligan]

Linda,
I would be "more than happy " with this shot. It is interesting to me that there is very little discussion on how many attempts were made to get the "shot"........... this is the "Shot"...!
The colors of the bird play nicely off of the flower and the leaf, they seem to be complimenting each other in a glorious way !
I love it
Jerry

[David Steele]

Linda, your image is simply stunning, a great example of its genre. The background is beautiful and appropriate and no one has mentioned how well the colours of the bird and flower match. As the lighting is so well balanced, I would love to have watched you set this up.

[Judy Lynn Malloch]

Stunning image Linda and I love the beautiful irredescent colors on the hummingbird which you have captured beautifully.. Thanks to for all the flash info it is extremely informative and so helpful. Gorgeous work !!!

[Linda Dulak]

Linda: Aaaaah this brings back memories! Loved those times at Canopy Lodge.

And this is a beautiful image of the wood nymph. I got one of the little guy coming in for a landing, nothing this beautiful.

Linda

[Linda Robbins]

Linda,
I would be "more than happy " with this shot. It is interesting to me that there is very little discussion on how many attempts were made to get the "shot"........... this is the "Shot"...!
The colors of the bird play nicely off of the flower and the leaf, they seem to be complimenting each other in a glorious way !
I love it
Jerry

Thanks so much for your comments.

When photographing at a hummingbird set up, you normally fire as many frames per second as your camera will allow in order to capture the most interesting flight poses., Many images are later deleted due to poor wing position, closed eyes, or part of the bird being out of the frame, another bird blocking part of your bird, etc. In areas with lots of hummiingbirds coming to the set up, you can easily take 1500 - 2000 images a day but you will end up with a good percentage of keepers!

[Linda Robbins]

Linda: Aaaaah this brings back memories! Loved those times at Canopy Lodge.

And this is a beautiful image of the wood nymph. I got one of the little guy coming in for a landing, nothing this beautiful.

Linda

Hi Linda (and Norm)
Thanks for your comments. It was great getting to know you and Norm at Canopy Lodge and you both got some great hummingbird images. I sent you a photo of the set up for your talk...check your email!

[Arsdel Fluesmeier]

This is a fantastic image. Absolutely no nits. Beautiful.