Hummingbird Settings

I'm reviewing some Hummingbird photos I took in Panama a few weeks ago. One thing I'm noticing is that my aperture should have been closed up some. I usually keep the aperture wide open for birds to get maximum shutter speed, but for hummers this didn't work out. Most of my shots have part of the bird well in focus, but rarely all of it or the eye.

Here's the scenario: tripod mounted, weak light (rain), camera mounted flash with Better Beamer, Canon 7D, and a 70-200+2x lens for a total of 400mm, shooting birds at perches from maybe 3-4 meters away.

In that scenario, what settings do you use?

Hi, Eliotte. When shooting perched hummingbirds in Costa Rica (similar conditions to what you describe), I shoot my aperture wide open or close to it and then set my ISO as high as I think my camera body can produce quality images in order to get a reasonably fast shutter speed. So, with your equipment, I probably would shoot at f5.6 and cap my ISO at 800, with a shutter speed goal of at least 1/100. If you can get faster, great. The trick is to get an exposure that would be a good ambient light shot and then add in just a touch of fill-flash, usually with TTL exposure compensation at -2 to -3.

A mistake I see many photographers make in the dark rainforest is to underexpose the ambient light in order to get a fast shutter speed and then let the flash do the work. With the flash coming from the front and providing all or most of the light on the subject, the images invariably will look flashed, which never really makes for an appealing image.

I hope this helps.

Cheers from Costa Rica,
Greg Basco

Hi Greg. Maybe a typo. Didn't you mean 1/1000 at least ?

Regards,

Hi, Fabio. If you can get 1/1000 that would be great, but 1/100 is often more realistic and can be enough for perched hummingbirds. Like I said, though, you'll want to get the fastest shutter speed you can given your camera body's high ISO capabilities. You'll have to weigh the benefit of increased shutter speed vs. increased high ISO noise in each case.

For hummingbirds in flight, I think 1/1000 or higher is a good goal.

Cheers,
Greg

ooopps, I missed the perched part; I thought of hummingbirds in flight. Sorry.

For Elliot, using a DOF calculator the setting for 400mm f5.6 at 4m gives a dof of 19mm. 10mm at 3 meters.
I would suggest working at a little longer distance (more DOF) and cropping later.