Multi-Flash Hummingbirds

[z06-jim]

Which one is male which one is female? The "Red Neck" is male?

That's correct, the first two hummer shots with the iridescent gorget are the males....it's kind of hard to catch them at just the right angle/light to get that iridescence to show .....I probably only have about a 10% success rate getting it right so far..........

 

[z06-jim]

very cool!

Thank you......

 

[icassell]

Here's an interesting explanation of hummingbird iridescence:

Why are Hummingbirds Iridescent?

 

[Derrel]

High Speed Synch is NOT for stopping fast motion...in fact, it typically blurs fast motions because it is not one,single short-duration flash, but a sequence of very rapidly pulsing mini-bursts, which allow you to use a fast shutter speed to control background brightness or to allow you to use a very wide aperture and a fast shutter speed when doing fill-in flash in bright sun light.

High Speed synch is in fact, a very poor Canon-branded name for what Nikon and others call Focal Plane Synchronization, or FP Sync; multi-burst flash of this type typically is around 80 hertz I think, if memory serves, so the flash firing at close range events like ice cubes dropping into glasses, or hummingbird wings flapping means the exposure is actually made of of multiple flash pops, so the action is blurred. By naming High Speed Synch what they named it, Canon has created an entire group of people who are fooled into using it to try and use it for high-speed events, with disastrous results.

These look good because the shutter speed of 1/250 second is not making hardly ANY of the exposure--these are exposed by single-event flash firing, either with one flash unit or two or more synchronized flash units. To do stop-motion photography, one typically wants to set the shutter speed to the camera's fastest normal synch speed (1/125, 1/160, 1/200, or 1/250, typically,with focal-plane shutters and CMOS sensors) and use "Normal" flash synchronization.

What Canon has named High Speed Synch is actually most useful for outdoor fill-flash shots when shooting weddings or portraiture, using wide-apertures like f/1.8 or f/2 or f/2.8, at very high shutter speeds, with flash being used to fill-in shadows on basically still, posed people.

 

[z06-jim]

Awesome hummer shots....well captured!!

Thank you.......

 

[z06-jim]

Amazing shots, very very good!

Much appreciated......

 

[z06-jim]

my weakest bird for getting good shots of......Mike

Thank you......

 

[z06-jim]

Jim
I resisted this thread thinking...another bird shot. Well, these images are really top notch. I know how hard it is to shot hummingbirds, I have not been successful yet. Thanks for the great shots.

Thanks foir the comments...... keep after them, it took me quite a while to start getting decent shots of the little speedsters......

 

[z06-jim]

Very nice pics. Love #1

Thanks for the pick........

 

[z06-jim]

Outstanding! Great skills!

Thanks.......

 

[z06-jim]

Can't believe these pics.. almost looks unreal.. but very nice job.
Impressive shots.

Thank you very much.........

 

[illbowhunter]

Fantastic shots!!

I have taken many pics of Hummers but nothing close to those.

 

[Hardrock]

<--- in aw!!!! Unbelievable. Beautiful shots!:thumbup:

 

[Gnowxed]

Awesome shot....like it alot.

 

[z06-jim]

Beautiful images. I use HSS and fast SS but, as you mentioned, have limited success. Would you care to describe your flash setup in a bit more detail? How are you triggering your 6 flashes? How are they positioned?
I've been resisting buying Linda Robbins' hummingbird photography guide as I know then I'll have flash-envy (I only have a single 430EX at the moment). This, of course, doesn't include my glass envy for your 600mm.
https://store.birdsasart.com/shop/item.aspx?itemid=55

Thanks Ian......I'll post a pic of my set-up in my next thread very soon....you will be able to see how it's setup a lot better than I can explain.....
I've thought about purchasing Linda's CD myself......