Printable View
Camera Model: Canon EOS 30D
Date/Time: 2010:09:26 09:01:38
Shutter speed: 1/250 sec
Aperture: 20
Exposure mode: Manual
Metering mode: Spot
Drive mode: Single frame shooting
ISO: 100
Lens: EF500mm f/4L IS USM
Focal length: 500mm
AF mode: Manual Focus
3 Vivitar 252 compact flashes at full power
Hello Christopher. Nice hummer and you got a lot of detail out of the plumage. I'd remove one of the 2 catchlights from the eye and would do a bit less center oriented crop. I am looking at it on my laptop and the color of the BG looks strange. Is it natural or you prepared it? TFS.
Lorant
I was hoping the background wouldn't be too noticeable. It is a painted backdrop I made. When using flash on hummers, there needs to be some sort of backdrop for the flash to light up.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lorant Voros
I like the bird but I regret to say the background doesn't look good at all, it is a very bright green on my screen I have never seen grass or trees that colour... but I also have to say I haven't seen these birds in the flesh either!
Christopher I agree with the previous comments. I wouldn't throw the backdrop out but I would repaint it to make it not be a single continuous colour perhaps some added browns would help.
As an alternative take an out of focus photo of some foliage, print it on 8" x10" or larger matte paper and use that as a BG.
I would also try and decrease the power of your flashes somewhat to produce a "fill flash" look and not a full flash one.
All that being said you still have captured the bird with its details. Keep up your experimentation.
Have to agree about the BG - very unnatural, although I understand the need for an artificial BG for flash hummer shots. I thought I read somewhere that hummingbird specialists use artificial BGs consisting of a print of an OOF image of foliage?
Nice capture of the hummer, though. Good detail, and the bird seems mostly parallel to the sensor (do I detect a bit of head turn away from you? Hard to tell...). The perch is very nice, with those thorns adding interest. Perhaps the image can go a bit brighter.
John
Yeah, this was an experiment and I am still unsettled on it. Unfortunately the birds migrated the very week I started shooting them so I will need to wait until next year. I have used this same background (as in the humingbird shot) on a trip I did to Peru. Please give it a look and your opinion would be greatly appreciated again. I used a different ligthing approach and the backdrop responded differently in that situation.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stephen Stephen
Christopher, your background does indeed look much better with the frog from Peru (what a cool frog!) than with the hummingbird. It's basically the artificial tone that I think causes the issue with the hummingbird picture.
I do normally use prints of out of focus vegetation for backgrounds for multi-flash hummingbirds but I also have used painted backgrounds, and they can work quite well too. Regarding the flash settings, I am a bit curious about why you used full-power. Though it's actually the positioning of the flashes that matters rather than the power setting in terms of achieving natural looking lighting, a lower power setting would allow you to freeze the wings if you were going for these guys in flight. Looking at the catchlights in the hummingbird's eye, it looks like the main flashes were placed in a fairly frontal fashion. I would suggest moving them more off axis for a more natural looking lighting scheme that gives a little more shadow and texture.
Hummingbird photography is a blast and is quite addictive so I hope you keep playing around and trying different settings and lighting variations.
Cheers,
Greg Basco
Hi GregQuote:
Originally Posted by Greg Basco
Now I will tell what I did differently in the frog photo. I used only one flash. The flash is held just high enough in front of the frog to throw any shadow ( from the frog ) out of view of the final image on the artificial background just behind the frog. With macro shots the light falls off pretty quick so the backdrop always is a bit less exposed by the one flash than the main subject (the frog). But as luck would have it one flash for me is ideal in the rainforrest where less equipment is a blessing. With my humming bird shot, even though I used the same background, I used one of my flashes entirely on the background (placed behind the bird) and I placed that flash too close to the background, so the background lit up too intensely. That caused the color to shift to garish. So yes, I think you are right about flash placement being important. My two remaining flashes are exatcly as you mentioned. (I purposely left the highlights in the eye as FYI for the forum readers). I was coming round to moving the two front flashes further off axis when unfortunately the hummers decided to migrate to Mexico thus ending my fun.
Why full power? I wanted to use the smallest possible f stop. I am aware that lower power settings give a better action stopping flash (shorter duration). At this point in my trials, it seems the most acceptable wing position for me is either with the wings completely back or completley forward. When by luck I get those positions, I seem to get reasonable action stoppage even at full flash power. My theory is, perhaps those positions are the slowest part of the wing beat as the wing is 'stopped' as it begins to come back for a new beat. Currently I favor my cloth backdrop because it is very portable when traveling to the rainforest. So I will keep experimenting. I am leaning toward the flash placement solution more than repainting my backgrounds. I will be posting a hummer flight shot tomorrow. By the way. The frog is Hyla punctata and they are photogenic as can be. Thanks for your thoughts! I really need that kind of help to speed me along.
Hi, Christopher. I think you are right about the full upstroke and downstroke being the slowest motion and thus the easiest position to catch. I too use full power at times when I want wing blur with a sharp body, which is also a really nice look for multiple flash hummingbird work. At other times I use lower power to freeze the wings. Totally agree about the cloth backgrounds being more portable than the prints. For the prints you really need some kind of backboard which can be hassle to take out in the field.
In the end, keep on experimenting. I've found that there's no one way to do multiple flash so it's all up to you fo find what works best. I may post a shot myself in the coming days.
Cheers,
Greg Basco
