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Thread: Panama to JFK #2

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    Publisher Arthur Morris's Avatar
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    Default Panama to JFK #2

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    This Violet-bellied Hummingbird was photographed at a Linda Robbins designed 8 flash set-up near Canopy Tower, Panama with the 400mm f/4 IS DO lens, a single 25mm extension tube, and the EOS-1D MIII. ISO 400. Manual mode: 1/250 sec. at f/20.

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    Hey Artie, Sweet flash work, colors, and exposure control. Nice BG. Maybe a small crop from the left and top?

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    Hello Artie,

    Nice to see a hummer image from you. Amazing fill flash work....looks very natural. What is the BG? Looks very clean and nice. Is it natural? Great pose, sharpness, colors, DOF, catch-light and eye contact. I'd crop it a little tighter if it was mine.....and I'd take your 8 flash set up as well :-). Congratulations.

  4. #4
    Wally Nussbaumer
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    Nicely done. My only nit is the halo around the upper parts of the hummingbird.

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    The flash work is excellent, but the BG is too plain and colorless for me. It gives the image a very cold and studio like atmosphere, with no excitement at all. The bird itself and the pose are perfect :)

  6. #6
    Ákos Lumnitzer
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    I suspect you placed a colored board in the BG? It does appear though as if the bird were cut out and just pasted, though that is not the case of which I am sure. Maybe the edges seem very sharply defined, which could give that appearance. And you Maestro of all people, why 800 pixels wide ant not 1,024?????? :)

    Pose, color and framing perfect for me. :)

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    Lifetime Member James Salywoda's Avatar
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    Such a beautiful Hummer Arthur nice wing position and detail I like its placement in the frame.

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    Artie....

    Subject is exquisite, technicals are as usual excellent and I have but two nits....

    A) The background is just too drab and consistent and it looks unnatural as it has no tonal differences anywhere that I can see.. Is it a natural background or a placed one between the subject and the real background??

    B) I wish that the top of the head were ever so slightly brighter.

    The underside of the tail is a bit dark, but that is to be expected.

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    Ben Egbert
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    Very nice shot. I too see a halo. Otherwise nothing I would change.

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    The bird is spot on as I would expect. The austere background lends little and gives the image a sterile studio shot feel.
    Last edited by Mike Tracy; 08-21-2009 at 03:10 AM. Reason: Kan't spell

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    Forum Participant Joe Senzatimore's Avatar
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    Sweet and simple. Don't get any better than this.

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    I like the pose, colours and lighting but I agree with the other comments about the background being too sterile.
    Such a uniform BG does, however, show up a couple of dust spots that would normally go unnoticed.

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    Lifetime Member Marina Scarr's Avatar
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    Although the bird is sharp, the colors gorgeous and the pose nice, the picture doesn't work for me. The feel of nature isn't there.

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    Most of nits & crits covered, but it shows I looked and wrote

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    Lifetime Member Stu Bowie's Avatar
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    These flash set up images amaze me, how you guys manage to freeze the incredible speed that their wings flap. Love the colours on the HB, and he just pops so well from the BG. Well captured Artie.

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    Another fantatsic image Guruji , I am amazed to see freezed wings at 1/250 ,
    I would like to ask a stupid question , without flash what SS can get such a freeze of wings
    TFS

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    Quote Originally Posted by Lorant Voros View Post
    Hello Artie, Nice to see a hummer image from you. Amazing fill flash work....looks very natural. What is the BG? Looks very clean and nice. Is it natural? Great pose, sharpness, colors, DOF, catch-light and eye contact. I'd crop it a little tighter if it was mine.....and I'd take your 8 flash set up as well :-). Congratulations.
    Lorant, Thanks for your comments. The flash is flash as main light not fill flash.... The BKGr is a print of light blue. (I do prefer somewhat mottled BKGRs but Linda likes the plainer ones as she often uses flowers in the set-up.) In this case the BKGR is supposed to represent sky. And unlike most of the folks who commented here I rather like it.

    We traveled to Panama with three eight flash set-ups. 30 flashes, more than 30 light stands, background mounts, several hundred AA batteries, about 40 BKGRs, and a ton of other stuff in six extra pieces of luggage. You gotta love that....

    ps: You can learn all the details of high speed flash hummer photography in Linda's great guide here: https://store.birdsasart.com/shop/ca....aspx?catid=33
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    Stuart, Setting all of the flashes to 1/32 power yields extremely fast effective shutter speeds either of about 1/8000 or 1/15000 sec (I cannot remember which...)

    Oshkosh, I have stubbornly stuck with 800 wide as that is what I use for the Bulletins and going larger would invite folks to make some quite decent prints of various sizes....

    Harshad, 1/8000 sec. would come close to freezing the wings but you would need to be using a high ISO, working in the sun, and working wide open.... All bad.
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    That the problem we have here , can not use fill flash
    thanks for info Guruji
    Harshad

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    Harshad, I am confused. You cannot use flash in all of India or you cannot use flash on the tigers???
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    Guruji
    We can not use Flash in any reserve forest on any animal or bird

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    All said above Guru, just add my "congrats" to this, I am working towards on this technic now of mutiple flash on sunbirds, only issue is getting the feeder right. hope it works out.. great image Guru.. waiting for more.

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    I've never seem a humming bird and this is a very interesting image of one. Technological limitations have conditioned us to expect blurring of wings of birds in flight, to the point we often see comments such as "just enough blurring to create a sense of motion" - as if it were deliberate:D. Here, you have eliminated such blur. As a result, the subject is crisp, and, yes, gives an impression of sterility. As technology improves, I wonder if we will see more and more crisp images, thus changing our expectations.

    I love the bird, but agree about the background.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Harshad Barve View Post
    Guruji
    We can not use Flash in any reserve forest on any animal or bird
    Thanks Harshad, It is the same in the Galapagos. Be thankful for digital capture....
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    great pose and exposure - all mentioned! I am always amazed by these setups. 1/15000 (effective) is pretty darn fast! great capture of the iridescence.
    Morkel Erasmus

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  26. #26
    Rod Wiley
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    OK I'm probably going to show off my stupidly but here goes. F20 ? When I use my f4 500 with a 2X the sweet spot is f18. I know the 25mm tube allows you to get closer than the minimum focus of your 400mm lens but how did you calculate the DOF using the tube? Couldn't you have moved back and used a 1.4 and a faster and maybe cleaner aperture instead. Don't get me wrong, its a great pic but when I saw f20, that surprised me. thanks Rod

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    Quote Originally Posted by Arthur Morris View Post
    Lorant, Thanks for your comments. The flash is flash as main light not fill flash.... The BKGr is a print of light blue. (I do prefer somewhat mottled BKGRs but Linda likes the plainer ones as she often uses flowers in the set-up.) In this case the BKGR is supposed to represent sky. And unlike most of the folks who commented here I rather like it.

    We traveled to Panama with three eight flash set-ups. 30 flashes, more than 30 light stands, background mounts, several hundred AA batteries, about 40 BKGRs, and a ton of other stuff in six extra pieces of luggage. You gotta love that....

    ps: You can learn all the details of high speed flash hummer photography in Linda's great guide here: https://store.birdsasart.com/shop/ca....aspx?catid=33
    Sounds like real fun. I never even saw that much equipment...hope I will have the chance to use it once...in any case I still love the image including the BG.

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    Lifetime Member Markus Jais's Avatar
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    Wonderful shot. I like the BG, the wing position and the angle. Excellent flash work.

    Markus

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    Hi Rod,

    Thanks for stopping by.

    re:

    OK I'm probably going to show off my stupidly but here goes. F20 ?

    I usuall work between f/20 and f/25 or so using the smaller aperture if the bird has some white on it.

    When I use my f4 500 with a 2X the sweet spot is f18.

    I do not test, I just look at the images.

    I know the 25mm tube allows you to get closer than the minimum focus of your 400mm lens but how did you calculate the DOF using the tube?

    I never try to calculate the d-o-f as even if you did you can never predict the bird's posture and position... I should have mentioned above that the choice of aperture also depends in part on the number of flashes and the distance of the flashes to the subject. The more flashes and the closer they are to the subject the smaller the aperture needs to be to yield a good histogram.

    Couldn't you have moved back and used a 1.4 and a faster and maybe cleaner aperture instead. Don't get me wrong, its a great pic but when I saw f20, that surprised me.

    When you say "cleaner" are you concerned about diffraction (at f/20)???

    IAC, the speed of intitial focus acquistion is of utmost importance in high speed flash hummingbird photography so adding a TC is generally not a good plan.
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    Publisher Arthur Morris's Avatar
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    More for Rod: Linda Robbins Guide to Multiple High Speed Flash Hummingbird Photography covers all of the above and tons more. I would provide a link but unfortunately our store is down now...

    For Lorant, Linda currently has several hummingbird tours scheduled but there are very few openings. You can contact her at lindaasart@aol.com
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  31. #31
    Rod Wiley
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    Thanks Artie, the humming birds are very active at Corkscrew. The area they feed in is about 30' X 40'.
    There are no feeders just firecracker bushes so I never know where they are going to go. When they get there, they are only there for a second or two. Looking down the barrel of a 500 mm that close is like finding them through a paper towel roll tube, there is no peripheral view. By the time you find them they have moved on and I need to take my eye away from the camera to find them again and by the time I see them again there gone. I have used the tubes ( Kinko ) a couple of times on the 500 but it doesn't auto focus with them. Humming birds take a good bit of skill to get and lots of practice. Thanks for your advise. Rod

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    Sounds tough Rod. In the places that we visit for the hummers in South and Central America the action is almost non-stop and some of the birds hover just away from the feeders.

    Strange that you have AF problems with the tubes; I have never encountered that as long as the subjects are at close range. It would seem the Kenko tubes should not be a problem....
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  33. #33
    Michael Pancier
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    Artie is there a distinct advantage in using 8 flash strobes? I'm just curious if using a pro strobe set up like this one http://www.dalephotoanddigital.com/_..._To_Go_Set.htm with 1-2 lights which allow you to shoot up to 1/6000?

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    Michael
    1/6000 will likely be too slow to freeze the HB wings. At $1560 , the unit isn't cheap.

    In the multi-flash setup, the Nikon SB-26's are all in manual power mode at 1/32 which emits a light flash of around 1/12,000. The number of flashes just determines how many different angles you can use to illuminate the HB

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    Very nice bird and nice moment captured. I like the colors and sharpness on the bird.
    I find the bg quite pale and unnatural. Have a feeling the bird is flying very near of a house wall. The idea could be to let the Hummer popping up the bg but for this beauty a nice greenish bg would have been nicer (for my taste) :)

    Szimi

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    Quote Originally Posted by Michael Pancier View Post
    Artie is there a distinct advantage in using 8 flash strobes? I'm just curious if using a pro strobe set up like this one http://www.dalephotoanddigital.com/_..._To_Go_Set.htm with 1-2 lights which allow you to shoot up to 1/6000?
    See Peter H's excellent response. In addition, with a single light source, the results would be pretty miserable. The four to six flashes in a set-up are positioned to yield a pleasingly lit subject (not to mention razor sharp with forzen wingtips).

    Thanks Peter.
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  37. #37
    Michael Pancier
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    Quote Originally Posted by Arthur Morris View Post
    See Peter H's excellent response. In addition, with a single light source, the results would be pretty miserable. The four to six flashes in a set-up are positioned to yield a pleasingly lit subject (not to mention razor sharp with forzen wingtips).

    Thanks Peter.
    Thanks you two. So if I got this, the number of strobes at 1/32 are directly proportional to the flash speed you can achieve such that as Peter indicates you can achieve a speed of approx 1/12000 with 8 units?

    Just also curious as to what the balance of flash to ambient light you would get under your set up.

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    Publisher Arthur Morris's Avatar
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    Hi Michael, You are welcome.

    re:

    So if I got this, the number of strobes at 1/32 are directly proportional to the flash speed you can achieve such that as Peter indicates you can achieve a speed of approx 1/12000 with 8 units?

    No. The 1/12000 sec. comes from the manual flash setting, 1:32. That would be with one flash or twenty. We use two flashes on the BKGR and six on the bird (or the "zone" as we call it). More flashes closer allows the use of small apertures.

    Just also curious as to what the balance of flash to ambient light you would get under your set up.

    You do not want any ambient light to affect the image. The guideline is that you want to be at least two stops under the ambient in order to prevent ghosting. We almost always work at ISO 400 in the shade and are always three or more stops darker than the ambient. We are in fact using true Flash as Main Light techniques; if the flash does not fire, the image is black.
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  39. #39
    Michael Pancier
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    Thanks again Art. That's what I suspected (flash as main light) ... didn't make sense to me otherwise.

    Quote Originally Posted by Arthur Morris View Post
    Hi Michael, You are welcome.

    re:

    So if I got this, the number of strobes at 1/32 are directly proportional to the flash speed you can achieve such that as Peter indicates you can achieve a speed of approx 1/12000 with 8 units?

    No. The 1/12000 sec. comes from the manual flash setting, 1:32. That would be with one flash or twenty. We use two flashes on the BKGR and six on the bird (or the "zone" as we call it). More flashes closer allows the use of small apertures.

    Just also curious as to what the balance of flash to ambient light you would get under your set up.

    You do not want any ambient light to affect the image. The guideline is that you want to be at least two stops under the ambient in order to prevent ghosting. We almost always work at ISO 400 in the shade and are always three or more stops darker than the ambient. We are in fact using true Flash as Main Light techniques; if the flash does not fire, the image is black.

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