Hi to all. There is a current thread over on the General Photo Forum about fabric backgrounds for hummingbirds, so I thought I would share an image. A note on the lighting; I like quite a bit of texture, shadow, and backlight so that was my intention with the lighting positioning here. I was pleased to get only one catchlight in the eye -- always a challenge with multiple flash lighting. I also tried to get a bit of gradation in my background by angling my background flash. It's always tough to get good detail in the purples and blacks without blowing out the white tail feathers on this species, and I failed in that regard with two of the feathers on the left side of the tail but did well with the others. I was going to fix this by repositioning my flash but ran out of time as I had to get to my weekly soccer game --- maybe next week!
This is a male violet sabrewing, Costa Rica's largest hummingbird, visiting a Columnea flower, which is an epiphyte native to the cloud forest here.
I welcome all comments!
Tech: Canon 5D, Canon 300 mm f2.8, 25 mm ext. tube, multiple 430 EX speedlites, manual shooting mode, 1/160 second, f16, ISO 320, tripod, cable release, full frame image, just a touch of noise reduction on the background and a saturation bump
Very pretty Greg! I might add a little canvas at the bottom, and I would clone out the wing tip visible behind the neck. Love the wing position and eye contact. Looking forward to seeing you in 6 weeks and breaking in my new multi-flash setup.
Fantastic image Greg. The flash use is superb and you obtained an almost 3D look. Very good job with the BG gradation and great to have only one fcatchlight. SUPERB!
Pose, comp, BG, detail, exposure and color are allSTUNNING! I would try to tone down those whites and that's preety much it. Congratualitons!!! Great image.
I like this a lot. The background gradient works very well. The bird seems a touch dark. I played a bit with a luminosity mask on the darks and that helped. Looking forward to shooting with you in April.
Great shot! I really can't think of anything that would make it better. Could you explain your technique though? I know a lot of hummingbird shooters use multiple flashes. In doing this, they can somehow eliminate wing blur even at slow shutter speeds. I don't really understand how that works.
Very striking image and super flight pose with the fanned tail. The lighting is beautiful displaying excellent detail. Love the composition in this one Greg !!!! Sure would love to have this one in my files :D
Great effort Greg! I like the BG and the whites are ok for me to. I feel that the back of the bird is a little dark but it could be my laptop :). I would be very happy to bag an image such as this, and I hope to in april:D, see you then.
No nits for me Greg, and yes, those white tips are hard to expose but I don't find these ones so hot.
That flash for the BG really worked here. Love that catch light on the eye.
First off, let me say that Linda Robbins has a great CD for sale on multiple flash hummingbird photography. The basic premise of using multiple flashes to stop a hummingbird's wings boils down to this; you hopelessly underexpose the camera with a very small aperture and a slow shutter speed. If you took a photo without flash, the frame would look black. In this situation, the flash of light becomes your shutter speed. The pulse of light is very brief and allows you to freeze a hummingbird's wings. The camera's shutter speed is meaningless in the grand scheme of things.
Greg -
Very well done. Lovely pose and great flash work to preserve the purple and black details. The graded BG works well with the subject. Lucky to have these so close to your home
Thanks to everyone for your comments. Keith and Dan, these are the bird's actual colors -- he's quite dark. Nonetheless, Keith, if you wanted to do a repost with the luminosity mask you mentioned, that would be interesting to see. I'm looking forward to traveling with you guys very soon. If you don't get these kinds of images, Doug will refund your money :-)
As for Doug's basic explanation of how this type of hummingbird photography works, that's right on. Of course, once you get into it, there are lots of subtleties. I've been playing around with this type of thing for the past five years or so, and I'm always learning new tricks.
Peter, I hate to tell you but I shot this one on my front porch! Nevertheless, it's hard to find the time and get out to photograph these guys. Believe it or not, this is only about the fourth time I've set things up here at home. I hope you had a good time here in Costa Rica.
Violet sabrewing hummingbird at Columnea flower
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