In order to freeze the wings of hummingbirds, you need to use flash. By turning the power down on the flash unit, the 'flash duration' -- the actual time the light inside the flash unit is on -- is very brief. When set to 1/16th power, the duration is about 1/15,000th of a second. I took this shot in Costa Rica, and my photo tour group and I were shooting this setup -- nectar placed in the flower to attract the birds -- under a large canopy. When the sun got lower in the sky and the natural light hit the flower, I saw that the backlighting was dramatic and beautiful. The sunlight wasn't bright enough for my fastest shutter speed -- 1/8000th of a second -- so I repositioned a flash unit to simulate the natural backlight. My settings were 1/200, f/14, and 640 ISO. I used a 100-400mm lens from a tripod, and this is a green crowned brilliant hummingbird.
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