Trogon Photo Tours

August 2018 - This month's newsletter is an overview of hummingbird photography including using multi-flash and one flash techniques.  These images were taken on Ecuador photo tours in 2017 and 2018.

Sword-billed Hummingbird photographed January 2017 at Guango Lodge, Ecuador.  Canon 1DX II, 500F4 lens, 1/250 F14, iso 125, Canon 580ex flash at 1/128, 5 Nikon SB-26 slave flashes at 1/16, canvas background.  I am not going to get into the details of a multi-flash setup here, except to say that the 5 slave flashes provide all the lighting with the on board flash only triggering the slave flashes.  This means that the effective shutter speed is controlled by the flash duration which at low powers is very fast.  At 1/16 probably around 1/5000 of a second allowing us to freeze the wings of hummingbirds in flight.  One nice feature of the Nikon SB-26's is that they are triggered by any other flash unit that has a manual setting, so Canon, Nikon and other flashes all work without any extra triggers.  I typically try to get either a flower or perch in the image but the Sword-bill with this pose does well on his own I think. This species had been more difficult on our last few Ecuador tours but this August everyone in the group was able to get good images of it and we even managed a few fight shots.  

Tourmaline Sunangel photographed January 2017 at Guango Lodge, Ecuador.  Canon 1DX II, 300F4 1/250 F16, iso 320, 580ex at 1/128 5 Nikon SB-26's at 1/16, canvas background.  I like the color coordination in this image with the flower, bird and background all matching up well.  I also like how the composition flows diagonally from the lower left to the upper right of the image.  The flower is hung with a wimberley plamp and injected with sugar water. 

Chestnut-breasted and Buff-tailed Coronets photographed at Guango Lodge, August 2018. Canon 5D4 100-400mm at 371mm 1/200 F20, iso 800, 580ex flash at 1/128 triggering 5 Nikon SB-26 slave flashes at 1/16.  We always do some setups where the goal is to get hummingbirds interacting with each other.  All species of coronet tend to raise their wings when they land.  In order to get both birds in focus I stopped down more than the top 2 images which makes it necessary to run a gaussian blur on the background. 

White-whiskered Hermit photographed at Alambi Lodge, Ecuador.  Canon 1DX II, 500F4 1.4x 1/250 F7.1, iso 1250, Av mode evaluative metering at -1.3, 580ex fill flash at -1.7.  Not everyone is going to have access to a multi-flash setup so it's important to know how to make some pretty good images of hummingbirds with one flash even in low light.  Alambi Lodge is a place we often stop for a few hours during our Ecuador tours.  The owner is a friend of mine and the feeders there attract large numbers of hummingbirds some of which are more difficult to get at the other spots we go.  However, the feeders are set in a busy area and there isn't much room to do a multi-flash setup.  So we usually just shoot the birds near the feeders or hang one flower and shoot it with one flash.  A couple of keys to getting relatively sharp images with one flash are to keep your shutter speed below the normal synch speed for your camera and flash (1/250 in this case) and to use a fair amount of flash.  The result is often that the body of the bird will be quite sharp while the wings are blurred some.  This is because you are mixing the speed of the shutter 1/250 with the speed of the flash duration (a much faster number probably about 1/3000).  

Rufous-tailed Hummingbird photographed at Los Bancos, Ecuador.  Canon 1D3 500F4 1/125 F9, iso 640, Av mode, evaluative metering at -1.3, 580ex at 0, Gitzo tripod, Wimberley head.  This is going back a few years but it's my favorite image taken with the technique I described above - shooting at a low shutter speed (below the maximum normal synch speed) and using flash to try and freeze the body of the hummingbird.   The background is farther away here making it more pleasing.  Note that with this technique if the background is too far away it will turn quite dark.   

Rufous-tailed Hummingbird photographed January 2017 at Alambi Lodge, Ecuador.  Canon 1DX II, 1/2500 F5.6, iso 2000, Av mode evaluative metering at -0.3, 580ex fill flash at -1.0, Gitzo tripod, Wimberley head.  If you can get a fast enough shutter speed another way to photograph hummingbirds in flight with one flash is to shoot it more like a normal fill flash shot.  In this case we had hung a flower with a Wimberley plamp and inserted it with sugar water.  The sun came out enough to allow for faster shutter speeds so we took some images at faster speeds.  Note you need to have the high speed flash enabled (with Canon you can do this either in the camera or directly on the flash with Nikon you need to select Nikon FP in the camera).  This gives a more natural looking image but isn't practical unless you have enough ambient light to produce a fairly high shutter speed. 

Violet-headed Hummingbird photographed August 2018 at Wild Sumaco Lodge, Ecuador.  Canon 5D4 500F4 1/6400 F5.6, iso 1250, Av mode evaluative metering at 0, 580ex fill flash at -1.0, Gitzo tripod, Wimberley head.  We enjoyed staying at Wild Sumaco Lodge recently in Ecuador, it is one of the nicest lodges we have stayed at in Ecuador and featured several hummingbird species which don't occur on the west slope or up at Guango Lodge.  While this is not a multi-flash shot we had good success on the multi-flash but often we used a feeder instead of a flower as the birds aren't as accustomed to multi-flash there so using just a flower wasn't as effective as at other locations.  During this shoot we were photographing the birds as they fed on the verbena in the garden.  The sun was out allowing me to get very fast shutter speeds at a reasonable iso, I was using a fair bit of flash to try and fill in any shadows.  I was lucky to get this top sided image with no shadows.  

Long-tailed Sylph photographed January 2017 at Guango Lodge, Ecuador.  Canon 1DX II, 500F4 1/160 F6.3, iso 1000, Av mode, evaluative metering at 0, 580ex fill flash at -2.0, Gitzo tripod, Wimberley head.  These are kind of classic fill flash settings with the camera at the meter and the flash at -2.0.  The flash helps even out the lighting, throwing more lighting on the bird and therefore in ETTL flash mode, less light on the background as the exposure automatically compensates for the flash being on the camera.  I was attracted to  this image more by the plant than by the bird but it was a nice bonus to get this sylph perched up on top. 

Long-tailed Sylph photographed January 2017 at San Isidro Lodge, Ecuador.  Canon 1DX II, 500F4 1.4x 1/320 F6.3, iso 1600, Av mode evaluative metering at 0.  For this shot I didn't use any flash but the bird turned it's head toward the light which allowed me to get the iridesence on the crown.  I did have to increase the shadows in processing to get enough light on the face of the sylph. 

In conclusion using flash, whether it's just one or a full multi-flash setup, can help your hummingbird photography a lot.  When using one flash a lot of the technique has to do with how much light is available.  In low light situations shoot at a low shutter speed, underexpose on the camera and let the flash help to stop the action.  If there is plenty of light then shoot at a high shutter speed and treat it more like a normal fill flash shot.