Humming bird shutter speed?

I typically use 1/1250 sec or 1/1600 sec for hummingbirds. I also like them in the wings up position, i.e. during the up-to-down transition. Under such circumstances, you don't need 1/4000 shutter speed.

I captured this image with the 500mm PF lens wide open @ f5.6, 1/1250 sec and ISO 800. Outdoors, I would rather avoid those super high ISOs that degrade my images. Indoors, maybe that is inevitable.

I also like them in the wings up position, i.e. during the up-to-down transition. Under such circumstances, you don't need 1/4000 shutter speed.

I do too. It's timing the button press for those moments that I have trouble with ;)

I do too. It's timing the button press for those moments that I have trouble with ;)

In my case, there is no timing involved. I just shoot at 12 fps and pick the good images in post processing. I delete pretty much all wings down images.

I don’t believe anybody can time the humming wing beats.

It has really quick flapping wings. You guys setting up above s1/1250 for freezing hummingbird shot. Let’s say at f/5.6, max. Iso3200, so it is all about good gear and good light as well.

Really a challenge indeed.

I guess there might be a wingbeat speed that at 12fps could get you a 'bad' shot everytime?

Getting in or out of phase as a harmonic of wing beat.

You could try a J5 at 1000fps and 'see' the wing rate.

This handy PDF https://www.nps.gov/cham/learn/nature/upload/Hummingbirds-of-Chamizal_english.pdf

....makes the average frequency as ~53 bps.

If you're on 12fps and the wing is 50bps, you could theoretically get only wing down shots....:-)

Here is another example from 2012. At the time I was using a D7000, certainly not a top-notch pro body at max 6 fps, with the 200-400mm/f4 AF-S VR @ 400mm, f5.6. It was an overcast day so that I up'ed the ISO to 1600 and the shutter speed was 1/1000. This is the entire DX frame and I probably would crop it as outlined in yellow. Prior to the D7000, I was mostly using a D300 and I have captured hummingbird images with it that I am still happy with to this day. (At the time the FX bodies I had access to were the D700, which was only 12 MP that wasn't quite enough after cropping, and the D800 that was only 4 fps.)

I wouldn't mind having 30 to 50 fps with some mirrorless body in the future. That will pretty much guarantee some good, wings up images in every sequence, and it is easy to pick those out using something like LightRoom and quickly delete the other ~95% of the images that nobody else needs to see. We don't quite have that kind of computer power in even a D5-caliber (mirrorless) body yet, not to mention the computing power required for post processing.

I prefer a little blurring,not frozen, as seen in Shun,s postings.

For flash, I use high speed sync and rear curtain, and minus flash exp comp when light is needed on the body or wings.

Having been brought up as thinking flash as instantaneous, I've been surprised by how long a flash (especially at full duration) can last - certainly long enough to make dragonfly wings blur significantly. A little googling suggests that they're in the same ball park as fast hummingbirds when it comes to wing beat speed (with another factor of ten or so for mosquitoes), around 30-60 beats per second. A 1/8000s mechanical shutter should still freeze things, if you have enough light; you could expect a lot of roll from an electronic shutter, though. Bring back the D1. :-)

My understanding is that at least hummingbirds often have the decency to hover. I could even get dragonflies in Canada when they decided to hold still and try to see what I was doing; with the British ones that were concentrating on buzzing me, I had enough trouble just getting them in the frame. (To be fair, I've only knowingly seen a couple of wild hummingbirds, since they're not exactly native to the UK - and neither hung around for very long.)

When you are only saving the pictures with the wings at the peak of their extension, you can get away with a lower shutter speed because the wings are moving more slowly at that point. If you expect every position to be a "keeper" you need a much higher speed.

There are occasional exceptions, but I simply don't like hummingbird in flight images with the wings down or parallel to the camera. I rarely have any keepers with wings in other positions. In any case, a bit of motion blur is not a serious issues. IMO 1/1600 to 1/2000 is sufficient. I wouldn't use 1/4000 and end up with such high ISO that ruins the image.

a couple of wild hummingbirds

Some of the UK's Dragonflies are BIGGER than some of these Hummingbirds! ....that's crazy....:cool:

I was trying to shoot a small damselfly recently for the first time this year and my technique is a bit rusty.. no good in-flight keepers. My choice of AF mode etc was all wrong. If the sun ever comes out again here, I'll try Group AF.

My 200-500mm has recently developed an occasional 'lens, what lens?' problem on all of my DSLRs. I think it's a contact problem somewhere, I've cleaned the external pins, but not fixed it entirely.

What focal length lens would people like for this challenging topic? 400mm 4 and 1:1 macro?

After reading this thread, I reviewed some images of hummingbirds I took several years ago with a Canon PowerShot Pro 1. Even though the shutter speed was well above 1/1000 of a second, the wings were blurred. Which made me think that the minimum shutter size may be a function of sensor size, with a smaller sensor requiring a faster shutter speed - cell phone would require a faster speed than point and shoot, which would require a faster shutter speed, the 1", which would require a faster shutter speed than DX, which would require a faster speed than Full Frame. Lens focal length would also affect the required shutter speed.

Comments?

Most of my hummingbird pictures I recently took in Costa Rica had shutter speeds less than 1/1000 sec. Many were taken without flash in poor light so I compromised on shutter speed and ISO. setting on my Nikon SB-800 flash.

When allowed and conditions warranted flash, I used Auto FP high speed flash.

Attached is a hummingbird taken with flash set to a minus 3.7EV, rear curtain slow. Camera settings were D810, 300mm f4.0 PF lens at f5.6, 1/250, -.7 EV, ISO 800, matrix metering. VR was ON. AF-C. Dynamic d9.

Seems unlikely to be affected by sensor size, bgelfand - although I imagine the PowerShot probably either has a leaf shutter or an electronic one, which may affect things a bit. Since the mechanical shutter on a dSLR takes 1/200-1/250(ish, maybe 1/320) of a second to traverse the frame, I'd at least expect some distortion.

Mike: I was mostly shooting what I assume were Hawkers, and they're fast. I could only really set a fairly small aperture, zone focus, trigger flash (it was dusk), and hope. They're incredibly hard to get the AF system to track - even in daylight with hovering ones in Canada, the AF system kept ignoring them and shooting the background. I also had to use manual flash, because the preflash delayed the exposure long enough that the insect left the frame. A 200-500 was useless - it couldn't track, and the field of view was too narrow for me to aim. Plus I hit the close focus distance.

Damselflies are a lot slower, but also small. I've shot them when they're landed with a 14-24, although not by choice. I don't think you'll have much luck with a 200-500; historically, the 300/4 has been a good choice for getting quite close but still having reach, although the non-VR one doesn't focus very fast. The 70-200FL gets closer than I expected, too. Group AF is worth a try depending on the background, but bear in mind the moment the lens loses focus you probably won't be able to tell whether there's still an insect in frame.

Locking onto a landed one and waiting for it to take off may be the least frustrating approach, although they don't hang about. Obviously mating pairs are a bit slower.

The Sigma 150 would frame a stationary one well, but it doesn't focus fast - and you don't need to get much closer than the 300/4 or 70-200 will, since the target isn't that small compared with a sensor.

Or you could go my route of having a dragonfly catch one and eat it in front of you... And have the wrong lens with you.

I am, obviously, no expert. I've just failed a lot.

Which made me think that the minimum shutter size may be a function of sensor size, with a smaller sensor requiring a faster shutter speed - cell phone would require a faster speed than point and shoot, which would require a faster shutter speed, the 1", which would require a faster shutter speed than DX, which would require a faster speed than Full Frame.

Huh?

Sorry, not following the logic of that one. 1/2000th @ f/5.6 has the same exposure time and image brightness regardless of format size. For a given final viewing size, the angular motion, and therefore blur length of the bird's wing would be exactly the same. Leaving aside any difference in transit time/slit width/orientation to the subject, and any other variation between focal-plane shutters.

Having been brought up as thinking flash as instantaneous, I've been surprised by how long a flash (especially at full duration) can last....

Far from instantaneous.

Here's the 'scope trace of a typical speedlight at full output -

You can see that there's still some light output right out to 7 milliseconds (1/140th s) after triggering.

The orange line is the integral of light output. So if you look at the proportional exposure ("power") on the y axis, you can see its approximate related flash duration on the x axis - in milliseconds.

You need to knock the speedlight down to about 1/4 'power' in order to get a flash duration in the region of 1/2000th of a second. But OTOH 1/16th or lower 'power' setting gets you an extremely short duration that no mechanical shutter can equal.

Huh?

Sorry, not following the logic of that one. 1/2000th @ f/5.6 has the same exposure time and image brightness regardless of format size. For a given final viewing size, the angular motion, and therefore blur length of the bird's wing would be exactly the same. Leaving aside any difference in transit time/slit width/orientation to the subject, and any other variation between focal-plane shutters

I think we are writing at cross purposes here; I am Apples; you are Oranges.

You are writing about proper exposure - not too dark, not too light, You are correct; it will not vary by sensor size.

I am writing about how fast a shutter speed is required to "freeze" a given motion - in this case a hummingbird's wing. Let us posit two sensors with the same number of pixels one is full frame the other is a small cell phone sensor. The hummingbird's wing will move over a larger percentage of the smaller sensor's area in the same time than over the larger sensors area. This should result in more blurring on the small sensor, or so it would seem. That would mean that to "freeze" motion a smaller sensor would require a faster shutter speed.

Here's one to chew on. Excuse the poor image...the original file was lost and only a small JPG was left. In 2005 I was in a high elevation jungle in Peru and surrounded by hummingbirds. The canvas cover was quite heavy so a fast shutter speed was out of the question, I only had a slow lens with me at the time.My D100 had a small built-in flash, so I used it, ramped up my ISO to 1000. I got some good still shots, at 120mm f/5.6

1/80.

1/80.

I am writing about how fast a shutter speed is required to "freeze" a given motion - in this case a hummingbird's wing. Let us posit two sensors with the same number of pixels one is full frame the other is a small cell phone sensor. The hummingbird's wing will move over a larger percentage of the smaller sensor's area in the same time than over the larger sensors area. This should result in more blurring on the small sensor, or so it would seem. That would mean that to "freeze" motion a smaller sensor would require a faster shutter speed.

This would be true only if the absolute magnification were the same on both sensors - same distance, same focal length.

In a practical situation, the absolution magnification on a small sensor would be proportionately less. In order to achieve the same FOV at the same distance, a shorter focal length would be used. The same motion would occupy the same proportion of the sensor.

1/80.

I guess you got lucky (!).... there's a stationary point at top beat where the wing isn't moving. How long that lasts is beyond my maths.

The wing appears to remain pretty rigid in flight with most of the flex being at the shoulder, guess that keeps the wing from moving too much.

The hummingbird's wing will move over a larger percentage of the smaller sensor's area in the same time than over the larger sensors area.

Errr, how?

Time is time, and distance is distance. If, in the real world, the bird's wing moves through, say, 2cm in 1 millisecond, then that's how much it'll be blurred by with a 1/1000th second shutter speed. It doesn't matter what sized sensor is used; that's the amount of blur.

If that image is then magnified to life-size - in print or on screen - the amount of blur will be 2cm. The smaller sensor will have needed more magnification, and the larger sensor less, but in each case the final viewed image will show exactly the same amount of blur.

Same goes for camera shake, where any given angular or translational displacement of the lens will result in the exact same amount of blur - provided the lens FL is proportional to the format size and the final viewing size is the same.

I really can't see any logic that tells you otherwise.

I take hundreds of shots in a day, and choose the best poses. It is chance thing. I usually set up a tripod, and use a cable release while I relax in a nearby chair. Over time, you can get some good shots this way. I cut the perches off of the feeder, so that I can get them hovering. There is a trick to this. They will sip, then back off a few inches, and that is when you shoot the photo. A feeder in the photo sort of ruins the effect. I usually use a 100mm macro lens, and get it very close to the feeder. The sound of the shutter/mirror will scare them more than a flash. I use a white cardboard background, and a custom high speed flash, and try for totally frozen photos. With the white background, it is easy to replace the background. I set the shutter speed to the sync speed, and the flash duration of 1/30000th of a second eliminates almost all motion blur.

I am giving away my high speed flash to the person who will get the most use from it. It is good for larger birds landing at feeders also.

All photos copyright Gregory J. Scott. All rights reserved.

This is a magnificent humming bird, shot at Cave Creek Sunny Flats campground, Coronado National Forest, just past Portal Arizona, which is near Rodeo, New Mexico. It is a busy choke point in the migration path of many hummingbirds.

http://gregscott.com/gjs_2007_spring/hummingbird/20070322_2336_100.magnificent_hummingbird.jpg

This is a rufous hummingbird, with a cardboard background. I really liked this pose.

http://gregscott.com/gjs_2007_spring/hummingbird/20070310_0802_100_0436.rufous_hummingbird.jpg

This is a broadbill hummingbird, white cardboard background.

http://gregscott.com/gjs_2006_spring/hummers/CRW_7188_broadbill_med.jpg

I only have a good composite on the website where I sell my photos, so please don't be offended by the photo being for sale. I'll also include a link to my portfolios on that site. The first link is to a photo showing how good a composite you can make by adding flower and background to the bird, after clipping the white background.

.Descent to Middle Desert by Gregory Scott

Gregory Scott - Official Website

Hummingbirds beat their wings up to 80 times per second. Unless that is an integer multiple of the repetition speed of your shutter, you will eventually get the wing position you want. Of course, you may have to kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince.

The wing stops momentarily when it reverses direction, which explains why even a modest 1/1250 second exposure can capture a sharp image. What works for basketball jump shots works for hummingbirds too.