Black Chinned Hummer

Beautiful one, Keith. No thoughts for improvement in anyway......

Absolutely mesmerizing Keith! Did you think about getting rid of the ghosted tail feathers? Either way it looks exceptional.

Beautiful as always Keith and the larger version is a must see,
I was wondering how you got such detail in the wings at 1/125 SS ?
Thanks,
Mike

Stunning is the word that comes to mind. Kudos!!!!

I was wondering how you got such detail in the wings at 1/125 SS ?

Mike. The camera settings for this image are amost meaningless except that they are setup to create a black frame. The exposure is all from the multi-flash settings. The flashes are set in manual at either 1/16 or 1/32. That produces a flash duration of around 1/10000. That is really the effective shutter speed, hence the ability to stop the hummingbird wings.

Wonderful comp; stunning bg, bird and flower. I don't understand all that flash stuff, but whatever...you nailed it! Sharon

Thanks Keith for the insightful answer to my question, it helps me more than you can imagine. I am also assuming that the SS being controlled by the flashes as you said, would also be the case when using a single flash?
Thanks,
Mike
P.S. Having this conversation with you is not only educational but, I get to look at this sweet image again, Win - Winn !

Extraordinarily sharp in all the right places Keith. Lighting is amazing. Thanks for sharing your specs.

Please elaborate. Did ambient light cause the slight double exposure on the left side of the tail, and perhaps the left wing, which was then cloned? I don't know much about cloning. (The background at about 1/3 proximal left wing appears to have an angular "smudge"). Or is it the slight lag time between the flashes firing? It's nearly flawless, and certainly beautiful.

I am also assuming that the SS being controlled by the flashes as you said, would also be the case when using a single flash?

When using flash, whether multi, or single, the exposure is really made up of two parts. The two parts are the ambient light, and the light provided by the flash(es). If the flash(es) provides all the light it is typically called "flash as main light". If the light is largely ambient with just a bit of flash it is typically called "fill flash". There is clearly a gradual scale between fill flash and flash as main light. If the shutter speed is fast enough that the resulting ambient exposure would be black (or greatly underexposed), then the flash duration becomes the effective shutter speed. If the shutter speed is slow, then the flash pulse can become a small fraction of the overall exposure time. For example, shooting some moving subject with a 1 second exposure with a flash, the flash is a very small component of the overall exposure time. The effective shutter speed in this case is the shutter speed the camera set.

Hope that helps answer your question. Flash is a magnificent tool to master in the field to solve a huge array of problems.

Please elaborate. Did ambient light cause the slight double exposure on the left side of the tail, and perhaps the left wing, which was then cloned?

That is caused by the ambient light adding enough light to cause "ghosting" from the movement of the tail. I should have had slightly better settings so that the ambient light added absolutely nothing to the overall exposure to avoid the ghosting. There was no cloning done. A small crop, pretty much out of the camera.

Here is a link to the image that I posted on my personal website. This version has the ghosting cloned from around the tail.

Hummingbird with Ghosting Removed

Thanks, teach. Really good lesson.

Nice, Keith. Excellent detail and flash work.

Perfect, Keith!
Beautiful composition, great wings position.

Almost studio-art (meaning this in a positive way). Excellent work Keith, but then again I don't expect anything less from you . Normally these colors would be too much for me, but here it works very well ! Cheers, Hans

Beautiful shot Keith. You really have a great flash set-up for these and love the choice of BG as it really adds to the red in the flowers. Curious...Did you use a gel filter over the BG flash to create the gradient pinkish-red tones, or was that just from the positioning of the BG flash? Nice work!

Curious...Did you use a gel filter over the BG flash to create the gradient pinkish-red tones, or was that just from the positioning of the BG flash?

Hi Kurt: I did not use any gels on the flashes. The background gradient is largely from then position / angle of the background flash.

Beautiful Keith. The hummer pose is interesting and the background is killer. Dave

I was at Tandayapa Lodge when Glenn Bartley was doing one of his classes on hummingbird photography. It was almost like portraiture, with an outdoor studio. Glenn used mounted flowers with sugar water injected into them, artificial backgrounds, multi-flashes and remote shutters. While the photos were very good, the process was kind of off-putting. Even the hummingbirds were food-conditioned.

Reading the various comments here, it sounds like your approach is much less artificial. And there's no question the photo (other than the ghosting) is superb. But at what point do photos like Glenn's cross NPN rules?

fantastic frame!! Congrats

Amazing photo!! I would love to be able to produce a shot like this with the use of flash! Love the contrasts in the photo!

absolutely exquisite, so sharp, beautiful colors and composition just wow!