Hummingbird Portfolio Sneak Peek

I’ve been working a lot over the last year on my hummingbird portfolio. My goal was to experiment with different setups in order to produce a diverse portfolio with a variety of lighting styles, similar to what we find in the ever-changing conditions of Costa Rica’s cloud forest. I also wanted to be able to offer my photo tour clients a more exciting experience for hummingbird photography, where they can obtain images that appeal to them while also learning a lot about lighting and the different strategies we can employ to get what we want in different situations. Along the way, I learned many things, but  four general lessons stood out.

First, I learned quickly that there is no “right” or “wrong” way to do hummingbird photography. Many photographers swear by natural light, and that’s great if you’re in Arizona or California, but if you are in a neotropical cloud forest, shooting natural light for hummingbirds leads to a very low success rate. And that’s why most tropical hummingbird photographers use flash in what is basically a studio setup. No ambient light enters the image at all; everything is provided by flash light. Note in the multiple-flash images below that the shutter speeds are fairly slow, say 1/200 or so. But that is actually irrelevant; since no natural light enters the picture (think of how it works on a studio fashion shoot or at a Sears portrait studio!) the actual shutter speed is the duration of the flashes, which is usually somewhere between 1/10,000th and 1/15,000th of a second. That’s why the natural light images presented below, even though they may have been shot at 1/1,000th of a second, actually have a slower shutter speed than the multiple flash images where the camera shutter speed was 1/200.

Many hummingbird photographers use anywhere from 5 to 8 flash units. As the images presented here show, however, good use of flash can take many forms, and you may not need or want that many flash units. The key is to achieve interesting, yet natual-looking lighting; though at times you’ll want to think outside the box for some more stylistic looks. Sometimes you want to mimic the relatively flat lighting of cloud forests where there is even but not very dramatic light with no shadows. At other times, you might want to do a high-key shot that mimics the whiteout light also common in misty cloud forests. Or you can do low-key lighting as the cloud forest is often shot through with streaks of light and shadow. But the best lighting to me is the fleeting moment when sun breaks through the mist and light seems to come from every direction, lending a painterly quality to the scene. And once in a while you will even find that combining fill-flash with natural light or even shooting straight natural light makes sense. The point is that you can get great hummingbird pictures with a variety of different lighting setups and combinations. Don’t let yourself get boxed in by one way of thinking!

Second, the quest for variety in lighting schemes led me to play around with lots of different equipment combinations. Many people think that they need a really expensive setup for tropical hummingbirds, but this is not necessarily the case. You can mix and match equipment to produce some pretty good results when the need arises. That said, you will want to have a bread and butter setup that most consistently produces the results you like. For me, that setup is a Canon 5D camera body, the Tokina 80-200 mm f2.8 zoom lens or the Canon 300 mm f2.8 L IS lens, a cable release, the Canon ST-2 transmitter, tripod and ballhead, and 3 to 4 Canon 430 EX flashes mounted on lightstands and sometimes equipped with a variety of light modifiers.

Third, my hummingbird experiments have led to what I think is a really diverse portfolio where every image is a surprise. As in any portfolio, if every image looks the same, the viewer will tend to lose interest. A portfolio where each image is different than the previous one makes the viewer’s eye linger longer on each image. This approach is starting to pay off as I will have a number of hummingbird images in a major gallery exhibit at the Missouri Botanical Garden in 2010, and I also have a hummingbird photography article in the works for one of the major nature photography magazines (I’m keeping my fingers crossed that this comes to fruition next year).

And fourth, through the lighting experiments, I came to the conclusion that more flashes are not necessarily better. Indeed, using only three to four flashes can yield wonderful results with more interest because of the heightened shadow and texture. But most importantly, by taking a more minimal approach I have been able to keep the number of catchlights to one or at most two for most of my images (the RAW files for most multiple flash hummingbird images will have anywhere from three to even seven catchlights in the bird’s eye). This means that my hummingbird images need very little post-processing work. Post-processing for the images presented here is mostly limited to the cloning of one catchlight (if necessary), a bit of noise reduction on the background, and cloning of dust spots from the sensor (dust spots tend to become more visible in our images when we shoot at smaller apertures and have smooth, OOF backgrounds).

Please see the images below for a sampling of the image styles from my hummingbird experiments, along with notes on how I took the photos.

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This image shows a female white-bellied mountain gem about to visit an ornamental banana flower. The lighting scheme was set up to mimic a nice sunny day in the cloud forest.

Tech specs: Canon 5D, Canon 300 mm f2.8 lens, 1.4x teleconverter, f16, 1/250, ISO 320, four Canon speedlites triggered with the Canon ST-2 transmitter.
I believe I had to remove one catchlight from the eye but other than that there is no digital manipulation, and this is the full-frame, non-cropped image. The background is an out of focus print of cloud forest vegetation.

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This is a rufous-tailed hummingbird pollinating a flowering vine in my front yard. The lighting scheme was set up to mimic the best light that exists in Costa Rica (IMHO!), the moment when the sun breaks through the mist in the cloud forests near my house.

Tech specs: Canon 5D, Tokina 80-200 mm f2.8 lens, f11, 1/200, ISO 400, four Canon speedlites triggered with the Canon ST-2 transmitter.
I had to remove one very small catchlight from the eye but other than that there is no digital manipulation, and this is the full-frame, non-cropped image. The background is an out of focus print of cloud forest vegetation.

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For this female green-crowned brilliant pollinating Heliconia rostrata, I did something quite different than in the previous two photos. The lighting scheme here was mostly natural light with two flashes off-camera as fill, one in front and one as backlight, both at 45 degree angles. I wanted some wing blur, which was easily accomplished by mixing natural light and flash.

Tech specs:Canon 5D, Canon 300 mm f2.8 lens,  f2.8, 1/400, ISO 640, two Canon speedlites triggered with the Canon ST-2 transmitter. There is no digital manipulation here, and this is the full-frame, non-cropped image. The background is the actual cloud forest (does it look better than the fake backgrounds?).

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The lighting in this image of a male white-necked jacobin pollinating a Calathea flower is the type of lighting most typically seen in many multi-flash hummingbird photos (at least those that are well-done ). It’s pleasing in the sense that the light is even and, in concert with the smooth out of focus background, shows off the bird’s colors well but I wouldn’t want to light all of my images this way. Note that there is a slight shadow on the underside of the bird. Many hummingbird photographers would place an additional flash to light up this part. But I urge you to study nearly any bird photo taken in natural light (those around water that acts a reflector excepted!) and check the slightly darker area on the bird’s underside. This is of course completely natural if the light is coming principally from overhead, which is most often the case on this planet, and that’s the reason I often forego this additional flash that creates light from below.

Tech specs:Canon 5D, Tokina 80-200 mm f2.8 lens,  f16, 1/200, ISO 320, four Canon speedlites triggered with the Canon ST-2 transmitter. The only digital manipulation here is the cloning of one or two small catchlights and a bit of toning down on a few flash reflections on the wet flower. This is the full-frame, non-cropped image. The background is an out of focus print of cloud forest vegetation.

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For this image, I wanted a bit more drama than the look of the previous image. To make the lighting a bit more interesting I simply placed the flashes at more acute angles. This had the added effect of eliminating extra catchlights. I love the color and curves of the native Bomarea plant that this male magnificent hummingbird is visiting, and I think that the added sidelight and backlight on the plant and bird really make for a pleasing image.

Tech specs:Canon 5D, Canon 300 mm f2.8 lens,  f14, 1/200, ISO 250, four Canon speedlites triggered with the Canon ST-2 transmitter. There is no digital manipulation here. This is the full-frame, non-cropped image. The background is an out of focus print of cloud forest vegetation.

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Now for this picture, which is one of my favorites, I wanted high drama. To achive that, I intentionally lit the scene to mimic the light we get when a shaft of sunlight penetrates the dark cloud forest floor, a typical early morning occurrence during the dry season. To me, this is a much more effective image in terms of capturing the essence of a hummingbird and its behavior and habitat than images with totally even lighting. This is a violet sabrewing male visiting a rain lily flower. This is a tough species to expose because of the dark purple plumage and the black and white tail. Nonetheless, and though the result on your monitor may vary, I was able to retain some good detail in the white tail.

Tech specs:Canon 5D, Tokina 80-200 mm f2.8 lens,  f14, 1/160, ISO 200, four Canon speedlites triggered with the Canon ST-2 transmitter.
There is no digital manipulation here. This is the full-frame, non-cropped image. The background is an out of focus print of cloud forest vegetation.

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I wanted a kind of 3-D lighting effect here so that the rufous-tailed hummingbird and the Fuchsia flower he’s visiting really popped from the dark green background. Again, the inspiration was the directional lighting we get on a sunny cloud forest day, and I really wanted a kind of stylistic effect. The nectar droplet was an unexpected bonus.

Tech specs:Canon 5D, Tokina 80-200 mm f2.8 lens,  f16, 1/160, ISO 200, four Canon speedlites triggered with the Canon ST-2 transmitter.
There is no digital manipulation here. This is the full-frame, non-cropped image. The background is an out of focus print of cloud forest vegetation.

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This is a different image as it was shot with mostly natural light and a bit of fill-flash from a 550 EX Speedlite mounted in the camera hotshoe. The curves of the Echeveria flower and the male magnificent hummingbird’s wings were what made this picture. I knew that I needed a bit of depth of field to get the important parts of the picture in focus. As always in the cloud forest, that means raising the ISO to keep a shutter speed that would freeze the wing movement.

Tech specs:Canon 20D, Canon 300 mm f2.8 lens,  1.4x teleconverter, f9, 1/1000, ISO 800, fill-flash in E-TTL, probably at -2 FEC.
There is no digital manipulation here. This is the full-frame, non-cropped image. The background is a cloud forested hillside.

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Though the best hummingbird images include both hummingbird and plant, sometimes it’s fun to do something different. I saw this green violet-ear perched near a feeder, and every time another bird would come near, this guy would flare out his epaulets in a territorial display. I was able to get in nice and tight to capture this unusual image. I purposefully left plenty of negative space on the left both because I liked the look and because it lends itself well to the inclusion of text for a magazine article.

Tech specs:Canon 20D, Canon 300 mm f2.8 lens,  2x teleconverter, f13, 1/100, ISO 400, fill-flash in E-TTL, probably at -2 FEC.
There is no digital manipulation here. I did crop slightly which I always consider a less than successful result but in this case I simply could not get quite as close as I wanted; that’s my excuse! The background is a cloud forested hillside.

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Here is a straight natural light image of a hummingbird doing its thing. When using natural light to photograph hummingbirds, you have to be patient and wait for just the right light. Actually I noticed this male magnificent hummingbird visiting flowers in the garden of the owner of one of my favorite hotels here in Costa Rica. And though I talked about patient, with this one I got lucky. I set up, pre-focused on the flower, checked my exposure with a couple of test shots, and then waited about 1 minute before the hummingbird came in and I got my shot. This is not the norm though!

Tech specs:Canon 40D, Canon 300 mm f2.8 lens, 1.4x teleconverter, f5.6, 1/1000, ISO 640.
There is no digital manipulation here and no cropping. The background is a bush in the hotel owner’s garden.

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For this image, I deliberately wanted a kind of studio portrait look. For that reason, I actually used the cheap Britek studio light kit that I have, complete with a softbox and an umbrella reflector (my front porch looked like it was ready for a supermodel!). And I wanted a bit of wing blur/movement so I intentionally set some of the flashes at different power ratios. This means different flash durations. So, some of the flashes probably popped for 1/8,000th of a second whereas one of the others was set to last longer, probably around 1/2,000th of a second. I like the soft yet dramatic light in this image as well as the composition.

Tech specs:Canon 20D, Canon 75-300 mm f4-5.6 lens, f16, 1/200, ISO 100, Britek studio strobe setup.
There is no digital manipulation here and no cropping. The background is painted fabric.

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Adding flash to natural light images is a great technique that can really add interest to your photos and also help in low light situations. Here I was shooting a male white-throated mountain gem perching near a feeder at the end of a rainy day in the day in the cloud forest. The light was very low and quite flat. My friend Jose Lopez, fellow photographer and the driver for my photo tour company, said “Hey, Greg. You’re always talking about adding some multiple flash to natural light shots of perched hummingbirds. Why don’t we try it out?!” So, we did, and the results added great interest and quite a bit of sharpness to the images in a tough shooting situation. We set up two Canon 430 EX Speedlite flashes set in manual mode on lightstands to the side and slightly behind the bird’s perch (it was drizzling so we put some clear ziploc bags over the flashes). I triggered them with my Canon ST-2 transmitter. The trick was figuring out the proper power ratios for the flashes so that they would balance well with our ambient exposure but I’m happy to report that we guessed right on the first try (or maybe the second or third ). Gracias, Jose!

Tech specs:Canon 40D, Canon 300 mm f2.8 lens, f4, 1/100, ISO 640, two Canon 430 EX Speedlites off-camera.
There is no digital manipulation here and no cropping. The background is natural vegetation.

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This is an image I’d had in mind for a while. After getting some nice traditional images of a green-crowned brilliant pollinating a Costus flower, I decided to go for a strongly backlit image. I was working with my multi-flash setup, so to switch to the backlit look, I simply turned off all flashes except for the one that was already positioned to give backlight (aka rimlight) to the scene.

Tech specs:Canon 5D, Tokina 80-200 mm f2.8 lens, f11, 1/160, ISO 320, one Canon speedlite triggered with the Canon ST-2 transmitter.
There is no digital manipulation here and no cropping.

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I really like this image. I had been experimenting with high-key lighting from my multi-flash setup and finally put it to good use with this image. The scene is intentionally overexposed so any blown highlights are intentional. This actually is similar to the kind of lighting one experiences in a misty cloud forest.

Tech specs:Canon 5D, Canon 300 mm f2.8 lens, 1.4x teleconverter, f14, 1/10 (not a typo; I really wanted to overexpose the image! And since the ambient light levels were so low, all the light still came from flash), ISO 320, three Canon speedlites triggered with the Canon ST-2 transmitter.
There is no digital manipulation here and no cropping. Background is the back of one of my out of focus vegetation prints (e.g., just white photo paper).

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Want to see more hummingbirds? Check out some more selections from my hummingbird portfolio. No tech info here; you’ll have to guess how each image was made!

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Want to learn more and take your own great hummingbird images? Check out my Costa Rica hummingbird photo tours for 2010 which I co-lead with great photographers including Greg Downing, Joe and Mary Ann McDonald, and Jim Zuckerman. And look for an article on hummingbird photography by Greg Downing and me, coming soon to NatureScapes.

Text and images by Greg Basco. Submit a comment or contact me with any questions.