Starteda new thread on this subject because I have recently discovered that shooting humming birds has its own unique set of challenges. There has been some good advice from some of the more avid bird shooters, but for the life of me I couldn't find it.


Here are some shots I took this weekend and will discuss at the bottom:


1





2.











3





4.





5.








The environment: Bright daylight, early morning, sun only about 20 degrees high and rightoff of my angle of view


The general settings for these were: 7d, 100-400 L @ 400, onboard flash and 580 exII off camera flash. All set to manual, including manual focus. Tripod. Flashes were set to 1/32 or 1/64---still not fast enough as you can see ghosting. Shutter @ 250, ISO 1600 and aperture at either F22 or F32 (This got me a whopping 1/2 inch dof on my @400mm---not much working room.)


The challenges:


1. I wanted to light the colors of the bird----Off camera flash works much better at this than does on camera or onboard flash.


2. I also wanted wings with detail, but not frozen


3. I am still having problems with ghosting since I only have one flash---I think I ll try setting the flash at 1/128 next time and just deal with the black background.


4. I used the small apertures to try and increase the DOF---This helps, but not enough in manual focus mode. I 'll try auto focus this PM. The images just aren't sharp enough.


5. I used High ISO to get the rest to work.


Problems with the photo's---Soft and ghosting still a problem. I'll keep working until I find a good combo. Also, on #3, I did a terrible job at trying to clone out the ghosting---I plan to re-work that one.


So,all please feel free to comment and add suggestions----I think I am on the right track, I just need to fine tune the process. What do you think---Honestly?





Bob