Hummingbird photography

Costa Rica abounds with nature, and one of the most exciting subjects to photograph is hummingbirds. In the highlands at almost 9000 feet there are a variety of spectacular hummers, and using a four-flash setup (three flash units on the birds and one on the background), my photo tour group and I captured these very special birds with tack sharp clarity. Photography allows us to see brief moments in time that our eyes can never see. I turn the power down on the flash units to 1/16th power, and this translates to a flash duration -- the actual length of time the light inside the flash is on -- to 1/16,000th of a second. That freezes the wings. The shutter speed, which is relatively slow (I use 1/200 which allows the camera to sync with the flash), has nothing to do with freezing the motion of the birds. I used a 100-400mm Canon zoom set to between 200mm and 300mm, and the lens aperture I used was f/18 to make sure I had sufficient depth of field so the hummingbirds were sharp from wing tip to wing tip. I hand held the camera, although most of my clients used their tripod. The background is a photo print of out of focus foliage; this prevents the area behind the bird from going black. Hummers are diurnal, meaning they are day fliers. A black background wouldn't look natural. This species is a green violetear hummingbird.