History
We have a Bromelaide (sp ?) on the front veranda, and most mornings when they're here. an Eastern Spine Bill visits. He's the only one that has a long thin beak to do the job of probing in the flower, I also see them do it on the Grevilla and Bottle Brush. It's about 1.5m from where I have breakfast. This has been happening for years, I finally got the bright idea to try and take a pic. Because I am so close it's difficut to do, I see now why the guys doing hummingbirds set up hides and use remote shutter releases
Setup
I don't really have a suitable lens, a SAL135 1.4 which would be awesome (closes focus to 0.7m) and SSM but is $1900, not in my repotoire and I am not ponying up for it :) I tried with my SONY 70-200 2.8 G1 but it won't focus that close, unfortunatley :( Next best lens for the job is my SONY 100 2.8 Macro, nice and sharp but slooooow focusing and noisy as hell with a screw drive, not normally a problem as I manual focus, using focus peaking and zoom for macro shots anyway (yeah for the SLT, screw the mirror slapping Canikons haha ) . See here
I have a SONY A99, it's full frame and the SLT design while superb, is not as good at ultra high iso's as say a Nikon D4. I have auto ISO set at 1600. (I speak of Sony and Nikon as they are the only two camera systems I have worked with) I have an SAL 85 1.4 but it is not SSM and is compartively slow focusing with a noisy screw drive, superb images but a lot more cropping would be needed. I already have to crop a fair bit.
The Shot
Because I am an idiot, I had it set in my normal (A)peture Priority mode when I should have been in (S)hutter priority (and probably M as the A99 can auto iso in M but I am lazy) and set it at 1/1000s and upped the auto ISO to 3200. The pic below was taken at f4,1/100, ISO800
or that's what I am thinking... I am trying to freeze the wings, so I might need to go to 1/1500 .. higher ? but the down side is to get any sort of DOF on the bird (at f4 the bottom of the tail feathers are blurry) I am going to have to go above 2.8 (this one was at f4 and I am thinking f16 would be better but probably unachiveable ? What might be a good compromise ?
Other thing I had thought of was to use a tripod and a remote (I only have a corded remote), manual focus on the front edge of the flower and lock it) and try that with 1/1000 ? ISO3200 and denoise in LR ? I think I will also need a flash to get to that and I don't think the flash will sync that high and I will see a
Lots of good photograhers here who know what they're doing so I thought I might "delve" for tips ?
This took me 90mins :) being retired I have never been so busy !
DOH !
No tips... :(
Okay, second attempt yesterday... what say you ?
3200 ISO, 1/1000 s, 2.8 f @100 (fixed using Sony 100 f2.8 macro lens)
Try a flash if possible to freeze the wings if your natural lighting is poor and if the bird is not in direct sunlight. If it is in direct sunlight this flash method won't work.
You only need a shutter speed of 1/200 @ ISO 100 if your flash duration is like lets say 1/15000. But u must make sure the bird is not in direct sunlight for this to work otherwise you will capture bluring of the wings from the sunlight. Nothing but what the flash has illuminated will show in the image if u can avoid the direct sunlight.
Think about it this way if i have confused you, what would happen if flash didnt fire in bad lighting? nothing u will get a black screen, this is why 1/200 shutter speed is fine if you can avoid the sunlight as you are only capturing the moment of the flash firing.
Oh if this method is possible adjust the aperture to a higher number for more DOF.
f2.8/f4 on full frame seems mighty thin
The other method without flash is use a shutter speed of atleast 1/1600 but u must wait for good light and be able to adjust everything else to get enough light. Also remember bumping up your ISO probably wont mean noisy images if your exposure is right. I see more noise from bad exposure than i see from putting ISO up to a certain point.
Link to my Flickr Account
http://www.flickr.com/photos/14869355@N07/
Hi greviousbh. I can't take photos of Eastern Spinebills hovering to save my own life. When I want to take a photo of a hovering bird that thinks it's a hummingbird I put my camera on video mode and hope for the best. I then go through the video, slowly and carefully on Picassa, and take a screenshot of the best and clearest image. My pc is so f***ed up it won't even recognize my camera as a device, period. Also, where the hummingbird wannabees activity is, is best viewed through my bedroom window on a stupid 11 0'clock angle and my camera hates that angle and flywire screens and glass windows and bright light and the shade, and I think, me.
Sorry, greviousbh, I'm not a good photographer; don't know how to really use a camera except point and shoot, and don't know my camera's functions let alone how to use them all. I'm an anti-digital person and I hate pixalations but I own and use a digital camera only because I have nothing else to use and it was a present from my daughter. I'm sure many other people here will give you lots of good advice. Good luck with your enveadours. You take really great photos by the way.
I'm at Tenterfield, NSW. (Formerly known as "Hyperbirds".)
Good luck with it - hope you have success. Sorry I cant help you with any photographic advice. Be interesting to see more photos as you try different techniques.
Intersting thread Gbh.
I'll be interested in the replies. Here's a bit of reading for you that might help.
https://photographylife.com/photographing-hummingbirds-in-flight-without-using-flash
This is a good one: http://www.digitalbirdphotography.com/7.7.html
and another one..
http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Photography-Tips/hummingbird-photography-tips.aspx
Hope this helps.
Samford Valley Qld.
great info on above links-
your going to struggle with freezing the wings without flash, even at 1/3200 i would be suprised to get a shot without motion blur. Best bet is to use shutter priority on a tripod Pre focus, with speedlight flash at 1/8 - 1/32 power. The difficulty is always freezing the bird with some light in the background - alot of fast hummingbird shots use multiple speedlights at low power and you get a perfect shot of the bird on an unexposed background. Some photographers use other speedlights to light the background as well but you are getting into full artificial lighting.
i value the natural light as well - always aim to include it in the final photo- hard to do .
heres a link to some flash infor i wrote up on the tips forum, not sony but may help in some way,
i think in this scenario speedlights and tripod are your friend.
best of luck and please share your results!
http://www.birdsinbackyards.net/forum/Remote-triggers-fill-flash-photographing-kingfishers-how
mike