How to stop a birds wings.

[jamesbjenkins]

A well placed off camera flash (OCF) could be a huge help. Expose for the flash, not ambient.

Almost all the modern speedlights have a max sync speed of 1/250 second, so that may not be the best option, but if your ambient is really dim you can probably get away with 1/250 for stop-motion.

In broad daylight, I usually stick with at most a 1/1000 shutter. If it's bright enough, 1/2000. There's no reason for anything faster.

 

[skyy38]

Yeah I'm learning that I guess I'll have to get out my flashes. It's not ideal for me. There are several people here on this site who capture AMAZING images of birds (yourself included) and I just can't see them taking out their flashes to capture the images that they do. I'm starting to feel that my other disadvantage is the lost stops due to the lack of speed with the Bigma.
In either case, I'm gonna take my flashes out tomorrow and see what I can do with that. That feeder ring is usually empty within a half an hour so I have a half an hour to get it done right. I usually get about ten bluejays when I fill the ring. They do not play around.

Then forget about the flashes and see if you can borrow some double headed halogen work lights and use those instead of having to put up with "noise". Each one of these work lights supplies 1000 watts total, so that should be sufficient to get enough light on your subjects. Heck, you could probably pick up TWO of these units from craigslist for beer money! If you find that the halogen is a little too "yellow" for your needs, you could pick up some gel material that approximates the rough color of the birds, so they aren't "highlighted" so much.

Those Halogen work lights are basically measured in Watts per Second.... so if you are shooting at 1/1000 of a second, how much light are you actually getting? Do the Math "1000 watts per second divided by 1/1000 of a second = ? watts of light for the exposure ! ( The equation is rough, but it demonstrates the idea! This is why low end constant lighting sucks for anything that moves)

Then I guess the best way to "capture" bird wings and make them "still"..is to be surrounded by a FULL SUNNY DAY and shoot at 1/1000...or even better..depending...

It amazes me that I can get the shots that I want , without having a "calculator" making my moves for me....on a nice day....really folks, some of you are putting to fine a point on "matters"....

 

[cgipson1]

Then forget about the flashes and see if you can borrow some double headed halogen work lights and use those instead of having to put up with "noise". Each one of these work lights supplies 1000 watts total, so that should be sufficient to get enough light on your subjects. Heck, you could probably pick up TWO of these units from craigslist for beer money! If you find that the halogen is a little too "yellow" for your needs, you could pick up some gel material that approximates the rough color of the birds, so they aren't "highlighted" so much.

Those Halogen work lights are basically measured in Watts per Second.... so if you are shooting at 1/1000 of a second, how much light are you actually getting? Do the Math "1000 watts per second divided by 1/1000 of a second = ? watts of light for the exposure ! ( The equation is rough, but it demonstrates the idea! This is why low end constant lighting sucks for anything that moves)

Then I guess the best way to "capture" bird wings and make them "still"..is to be surrounded by a FULL SUNNY DAY and shoot at 1/1000...or even better..depending...

It amazes me that I can get the shots that I want , without having a "calculator" making my moves for me....on a nice day....really folks, some of you are putting to fine a point on "matters"....

So all we have to do is only shoot on bright, sunny days and everything will be fine! Good to know! What about the other 265 days? Just leave the camera at home? Does your Coolpix have some special feature I don't know about?

 

[Buckster]

Then forget about the flashes and see if you can borrow some double headed halogen work lights and use those instead of having to put up with "noise". Each one of these work lights supplies 1000 watts total, so that should be sufficient to get enough light on your subjects. Heck, you could probably pick up TWO of these units from craigslist for beer money! If you find that the halogen is a little too "yellow" for your needs, you could pick up some gel material that approximates the rough color of the birds, so they aren't "highlighted" so much.

Those Halogen work lights are basically measured in Watts per Second.... so if you are shooting at 1/1000 of a second, how much light are you actually getting? Do the Math "1000 watts per second divided by 1/1000 of a second = ? watts of light for the exposure ! ( The equation is rough, but it demonstrates the idea! This is why low end constant lighting sucks for anything that moves)

Then I guess the best way to "capture" bird wings and make them "still"..is to be surrounded by a FULL SUNNY DAY and shoot at 1/1000...or even better..depending...

It amazes me that I can get the shots that I want , without having a "calculator" making my moves for me....on a nice day....really folks, some of you are putting to fine a point on "matters"....

Well I, for one, would LOVE to see some of the "wing-stopped" bird photos you've shot using your techniques! Please post a few (or several even!), along with the camera and lens info, so that we can all learn from your experience.

BTW, Your Flickr Stream seems to only have this one bird shot: http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2687/4179773992_9260a925ff_z.jpg?zz=1 and while it IS in flight and IS CLEARLY AWESOME, I feel it's not quite capturing the essence of the thread as a teaching device.

Looking forward to the other shots you've made that I'm quite sure better illustrate your mad skillz with frozen bird wings!!!

Thanks in advance!!