Hummingbird #2

[Joel Eade]

Ongoing effort to combine flash and ambient light to get detail in the head/body but a pleasing blur in wings and some natural BG light.

I am seated at about 8 feet from a feeder with camera (1D MKIII + 300mm 2.8L) tripod mounted on a wimberly gimbal head.

I am using two 430 EXII flashes on lightstands on either side of me positioned at approx 45 degrees to the feeder (these are about three feet from the feeder) and on camera a 580 EXII. The flashes are being triggered with pocket wizard TT5's. The flashes are set to manual power either 1/16 or 1/32 output (I have tried both)

If you want flash as the only light source you must set the camera for a drastic underexposure so that virtually no ambient light will be seen, this "freezes" the wing action as the light pulse from the flash is very short (something like 1/15,000 sec).....I don't want this effect so I am adjusting the iso and f stop in manual mode to expose for variable amounts of ambient light.

This image was created at iso 160 and f/10 thus.....not much ambient light so more of the "wing freezing" type effect. If I had increased either one of these variables by one stop then I would have had more wing blur similar to the last image I posted. Using the multi-flashes it seems that varying shutter speeds doesn't have much effect since it is so slow compared to the flash duration.

[Lance Peters]

Hi Joel - unless I am misunderstanding what you are doing - which is possible (Brain dead today) :)

SS controls the ambient light when using Flash - Aperture controls the flash.

[Joel Eade]

Hi Lance,

What I am doing is starting out with camera settings that allow not enough ambient to reach the sensor to creat anything other than a black image. At that point I am strictly relying on the flashes and the "shutter speed" will be whatever the duration of the flash is.......with the the flashes set to 1/32 power that will be around 1/15,000 sec.

Now of course, shutter speed / f stop / iso all play a role in how much ambient light reaches the sensor but it seems to me that : when relying mostly on the flash output the shutter speed has LESS effect and that by adjusting the ISO and/or f stop I can more easily increase the amount of ambient light and thus control the amount of wing blur in the image accordingly. (Actually adjusting the ISO alone works pretty well and doesn't change DOF)

Does that make sense? It's just what I observed by trial and error, not a very scientific approach.

Joel

[VinceRossi]

Really ncie...I really like the clearity and the feather arrangement around his neck...you are my hummingbird idol.

[Dave Mills]

Hi Joel, Thanks for relating your process which I find interesting never having done this type of photography myself. Looking at the image itself I feel you were successful. Lighting is even on the subject,good positioning within the frame and detail.
Since you are choosing where the area of capture is I might recommend you getting an angle where the backround is more even with less brightness...good one!

[Sandra K. Mathews-Benham]

Thanks for the playbook how to. I am going to try this.

[Jim Michael]

Joel, you're right on. Ambient exposure is a function of shutter speed + aperture while flash exposure is a function of aperture since the time associated with the flash is held constant by the flash duration. So to vary the background exposure, first determine an aperture that provides correct flash exposure, then adjust shutter speed to adjust background exposure, making sure the shutter speed is slower than the flash synch speed.

[Lance Peters]

Hi Joel - you are correct - so in effect you are controlling the ambient light through the ISO - which is increasing the sensitivity to light. SS or ISO will control the ambient exposure and aperture the amount of flash.

Artie has some stuff in the birds as art archives on using flash as main light - which in effect is what you are doing.

Since you are already setup with a feeder etc - I would consider adding a background to the setup - may as well go the whole hog.

Personally cant decide wether I like the Wing Blur or prefer them to be frozen in time - either way though thats only a personal choice.
Like what you are doing and doin well - keep at it and you will nail it in no time!!

Hi Lance,

What I am doing is starting out with camera settings that allow not enough ambient to reach the sensor to creat anything other than a black image. At that point I am strictly relying on the flashes and the "shutter speed" will be whatever the duration of the flash is.......with the the flashes set to 1/32 power that will be around 1/15,000 sec.

Now of course, shutter speed / f stop / iso all play a role in how much ambient light reaches the sensor but it seems to me that : when relying mostly on the flash output the shutter speed has LESS effect and that by adjusting the ISO and/or f stop I can more easily increase the amount of ambient light and thus control the amount of wing blur in the image accordingly. (Actually adjusting the ISO alone works pretty well and doesn't change DOF)

Does that make sense? It's just what I observed by trial and error, not a very scientific approach.

Joel

[Joel Eade]

Thanks Lance for the nice comments...

I'm sure to a large extent I am "re-inventing the wheel" so to speak and not really breaking any new ground here.

There's no substitute for the experience or trying to figure things out for yourself and besides...it's fun !!!

Joel