Trogon Photo Tours

May 2014 Newsletter - This newsletter contains information about taking action shots of birds in tropical locations where there isn't a lot of light.  It has information about flash and non flash options.  It doesn't cover multi-flash photography. 

Trinidad Motmot - February 2014, Cuffie River Nature Retreat, Tobago.   Canon 5D3 500F4 1/1250 F5.6, iso 3200.  When it comes to my bird and wildlife photography I put a premium on flight and action shots.  To me they are just a lot more compelling than portraits.  As far as worth in the stock photography arena, there are lots of good shots of most species perched but as far as tropical forest birds few or no good images of many species in flight or in action. So my approach on our recent Trinidad and Tobago tour was to try and capture some of these species in action.  Before I owned the Canon 5D3 I was somewhat limited as far as being able to take action shots in tropical forest environments due the lack of light and limited iso capabilities of my previous camera bodies.  Today's newer full frame bodies open up a whole new world of photography to us.  This image was taken from the top floor deck at Cuffie River which is an open area in the forest, the motmot was taking off from an electrical line which was cloned out here.  On the 5D3 iso 3200 is about the maximum iso I like to use after which the image just becomes too noisy, using that iso I was able to get my shutter speed at just over 1/1000 while stopping down 1 stop.  1/1000 is the minimum shutter speed for making an acceptable flight shot of many species.  

Plate-billed Mountain Toucan,  December 2013, Bellavista Lodge, Ecuador.  Canon 5D3 500F4 1/2500 F5, iso 3200.  After we took some images of the toucan on the tree before it entered the nest hole we concentrated on getting some flights images and everyone on the tour managed to get some nice ones.  The toucan would poke it's head out of the hole and look around before taking off which gave us time to be ready and attain focus.  I used a high shutter speed to freeze the wings well here.  For this type of photography the 12 frames per second of the 1DX would have been nice but I managed to time this one well. 

Green Honeycreeper and Banaquit - February 2014, Asa Wright Nature Center, Trinidad.  Canon 5D3, 300F4 1/1250 F5.6, iso 3200, 580ex fill flash at -1.3.  This image was taken in the bird bath at Asa Wright Nature Center.  The bath was a garish green color so I covered it with banana leaves to make a more natural setting.  We photographed several species of birds bathing there.  Occasionally there would be a dispute where one bird was trying to take another's place.  That was the case here with the Honeycreeper trying to evict the Banaquit form the bath.  I was just concentrating on getting nice images of one bird bathing but when there was a dispute I would fire away and try to capture the action.  In a situation like this there isn't time to change your settings.  This image is a little bit challenged as far as both shutter speed and depth of field but the unique nature of the shot and the interaction make up for any technical deficiencies (it's not the sharpest shot I have taken).  My only other options would have been to use more flash and then the image probably would have looked unnatural or to increase the iso to 6400 and use more depth of field and/or shutter speed.  In any event with the 1D Mark III or 7D the image produced would have been a much lower quality, if I had even attempted it.

Green Hermit - February 2014, Asa Wright Nature Center, Trinidad.  Canon 5D3 500F4, 1/125 F5.6, Av mode, evaluative metering at -1.7, 580ex fill flash at 0, iso 640.  Using a lot of flash and reducing the ambient (natural) lighting is the other way to create action shots.  With this method you can use a much lower shutter speed, and therefore, a much lower iso.  The reason this works is that the effective shutter speed of the flash is a lot faster than 1/125 - probably more like 1/2000.  With this technique if you have acquired focus well with a hovering bird such as a hummingbird you will usually get a very sharp head and body of the bird while the wings usually show some blur and motion.  In this particular image while the wings aren't razor sharp there is less blur than in most of the images produced with this method.  The reason you typically have some blur is that you are still using enough ambient (natural) light that the 1/125 slow shutter speed affects the moving parts of the image.   This method works best with hummingbirds and other birds that hover as with normally flying birds you will get more blur.  On the positive side, it lets you get sharp hummingbird flight images in low light with a low shutter speed and therefore a low iso with much less noise.  On the negative side the images look more flashed and the background will be darker due to the underexposure of the ambient light (the flash lights up the foreground but not the background). It was getting quite late by the time I took this and I probably would have been above iso 3200 to make a sharp hummer image at this point, so it was the only accpetable option.

Tufted Coquette, male - February 2014, Asa Wright Nature Center.  Canon 5D3, 300F4 1/1250 F5.6, Av mode, evaluative metering at -0.3, 580ex fill flash at -1.3, iso 1600.  This is an image that was taken about 3pm in the afternoon in a shady area where the coquettes would feed on a regular basis.  The group spent a fair bit of time down there and everyone took home some lovely images of this species.  The method of photography here was more of your normal fill flash photography - the image was shot near the meter for ambient light and the flash power was reduced some to make it look more natural.  I used iso 1600 rather than iso 3200 and a faster shutter speed because I knew I would end up cropping the image a fair bit and with a higher iso the noise would be more evident due to the crop.  You are probably wondering why I wasn't using my 500mm?  The reason is that these guys are very quick and difficult to follow as they buzz from flower to flower, I would have to compare it to photographing a large bumblebee.  Using the much lighter weight 300F4, I was able to maneuver fast enough to catch them in flight.  Contrasting this image with the previous image of the Green Hermit, this image looks much more natural, the flash is hardly evident and the background is a nice natural color.  There was more noise reduction needed for this image due to the higher iso.  If there had been substantially less light I would have had to go with the method described in the hermit shot.  

Rufous-tailed Hummingbird - November 2008, Los Bancos, Ecuador.  Canon 1D Mark III, 500F4, 1/125 at F9, evaluative metering at -1.3, iso 640, 580ex fill flash at 0, Gitzo Tripod, Wimberley Head.  This is my favorite image that I have taken with the technique of underexposing the ambient light and freezing the hummingbird with the flash.  To make this image I prefocused on the flower with a fairly wide depth of field and when a hummingbird came in to feed I would fire off a round of shots.  This is the more typical result with this method -the head and torso are quite sharp but the wings show some blur.  The background is far enough away that it's out of focus nicely but not so far away that it's too dark (which is a challenge using this method).  Note that when using this method you will always want to underexpose the ambient light (go minus 1-2 stops compared to the metering) but the amount of flash you use depends largely on the size lens you are using.  I find with a 500F4 you want the flash to be on full power at 0 compensation.  However when I am using a 300mm lens I need to dial in some negative compensation on the flash or the flash is too strong.  In this case I will experiment but usually have the flash on -2.0 to -3.0.  The reasons for this are twofold.  You need more flash with a larger lens and with the smaller lens you are usually closer which also means you would need less flash. 

So those are two methods for getting action shots of birds in low light, either crank up the iso to keep your shutter speed up or underexpose the ambient light and use flash to freeze the action.  As I have said the second method works best with hovering birds like hummingbirds but you can always experiment with other birds as well. Happy shooting!