I photographed this Rufous-Tailed Hummingbird on Greg Basco's porch in Costa Rica earlier this year. I really enjoy doing multiple flash hummingbird photography with all the exotic hummers and flowers down there.
Canon 1D Mark III, 70-200mm f/4 + 1.4x @ 223mm, f/16, 1/200, ISO 320, manual exposure, 5 flashes, tripod
Very nice. The red channel looks overexposed on my monitor? Also, I don't know if you do this, but you might want to increase the size of the flash spot on the eye and increase the sharpness of it to make it stand out more. Just a thought. The BG is super. I have to learn how to do that.
And you seem to have them sorted too. I like the angled posture, and good to see the beak in the flower. Sharp with lovely colours, and that BG is a killer. Another well captured image from you Doug.
That eye really does look jet black. I had a look at the RAW file and it looks pretty black (I don't think there's much detail underneath the black). Here's a closer look at the eye in the RAW file.
Very nice capture of this Rufous tailed. I like the pose. The red flower seems a bit oversaturated to me. Canon Reds seem to do that. Simple enough to fix in the raw processing in LR.
Perfect pose and angle of shot .. Exposure and Bg is Fantastic .. I agree with Bryan about increasing the catchlight .. I would have loved if you could fired the flash from another angle via remote because when flash is applied from the hot shoe it makes a subject look like a 2D object without a depth so it will be interesting to try this lighting experiments with subjects that you can get comparatively easily
perfect wing position and exposure! I'm curious - is the sharpness a result of the 5 flashes @ 1/200, I've seen shots of them @ 1/3200 that don't look as sharp as this?
Thanks Doug. So, I should be able to do quite well with a 300 f4 then. As for the workshop, I am scrimping and saving doing such things as eating 1 meal a day if I'm hungry and hiking 3 miles to work, uphill both ways, just like my grandfather used to do or so he claimed :-)
Hi Morkel. Here's an explanation from another recent hummer photo thread of mine:
Actually a steady hand is not required in multiple flash hummingbird photography. You set your camera to manual exposure and dial in several stops of underexposure using a high f number for plenty of DOF and low ISO. Set your shutter speed to a number below the camera's high-speed sync speed. In this way you'll be completely dependent on the output of your flashes to illuminate your subject. Set the flashes to manual mode and dial the power down to 1/16 or 1/32. At this low level of power, the duration of the flashes is 1/10,000 of a second or faster. That's how you freeze a hummingbird in flight and why a steady hand is not required. :)
Linda Robbins has an excellent instructional PDF on multiple flash hummingbird photography if you're interested.
thanks Doug! I'm interested in how it's achieved but as far as actually doing it I would have to travel to a country where hummingbirds are found, which probably won't be soon :)
Wow Doug, that's an amazing photograph. I can't find a single thing not to like about it. The sharpness, exposure, background, you name it... are all perfect. And thanks for the explanation on the setup. I'd love to try that some time, (but I need 3 more flashes first).
Rufous-Tailed Hummingbird
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