Hummingbird Photography Simplified

Each spring, New Mexico backyards are humming with black-chinned and broad-tails as they battle over feeding territories and entertain us with their aerobatics. A month later, the Rufous arrive with their bright flashes of red and orange. Photographers everywhere are scrambling to take “the best hummer shot ever”. They dream of the elaborate (and expensive) equipment they will need to accomplish their goal.

If you research hummingbird photos on the Internet, you will find most, if not all, serious shooters use strobes. As in LOTS of flash units fired remotely from multiple angles. While this undoubtedly produces some stunning and sharp images, it is also quite expensive and time-consuming to set up. But there are other ways to do it.

I have never used more than a single flash, sometimes with an flash extender on a 300mm lens, and found that approach is often more frustrating than useful. For one thing, the birds freak out at the moment of the flash and wind up in strange unflattering flight positions. Another disadvantage is that flash units must recycle, which prohibits using the continuous shooting mode available in most digital SLR cameras.

So this spring I decided to try a simpler setup with no flash. The main issue with any wildlife image is subject sharpness. And getting a sharp image means lots of available light. Why? Because you need both a high shutter speed to freeze motion, and a small aperture (more depth of field) to get more of the subject in the focal range. A fast lens is your best friend here. A 70-200mm, f2.8 is a good candidate. Or an 85mm, f1.8 will work well because you can be fairly close to the birds--if you let them get used to your presence and do not make quick movements. I even used a 50mm, f1.8 with some success, as can be seen in this image. Finally, use higher ISO than usual if your camera body can deliver clean images with it.

My backyard portal faces east, so about an hour after sunrise I have great backlight on the birds at my feeder, which hangs on the east end of the portal. This is great for silhouette shots, but not so hot for anything else. The key is to use a reflector. I improvised one out of standard foam board. The white surface reflects the sunlight quite well, but must be positioned close to the feeder. I used a ladder to hold the reflector, while I stood on the second rung and placed my camera with 50mm lens just above it. With a longer lens, you will probably need to be further back from the feeder. Also, it helps to be shooting at a horizontal or downward angle to get a dark background from trees or bushes since the sky will be too bright.

Experiment with different reflector angles, distance, and lenses until you get your own 'perfect hummer shot'.

-Tom Spross