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I wrote this for a meetup group, thought I would post it for everyone.  I’m hoping someone can get something out of it.

Please remember this is just my recommendations. This is the stuff that has or has not worked for me in the past. There is a better than good chance that you walk away with no photographs of a hummingbird. That’s just the way wildlife photography is. Out of maybe 1500 attempted bird shots (2126 frames, which I imagine about 500 are nature and macro shots) that I’ve shot at the sanctuary, I can honestly say I kept about 100 of them, and only like 6 of them. Only one has ever been sold or won anything. So keep all that in mind.

Why the hardware limitations, and what they mean:
Let me explain what has worked best for me:
I’ve tried it every which way, I even tried hand holding a 200mm f/2 lens once. That was not a fun day

You setup your camera on your tripod, and setup your exposure, white balance, lock in your aperture and shutter speed, you prefocus your lens and basically setup on a particular flower.

Now you sit there, and wait somewhat quietly AND WITHOUT ANYONE moving around, with your remote control in hand. Sooner or later the hummingbird comes to the feeder and when the feeder is not there they go for the most available flower. You click away until the bird leaves.

Why the distance:
Hummingbirds are extremely skittish and fast as lightning. What we have to do is NOT be a danger to them.

• Movement is danger. That’s why you don’t want to swing your lens around from flower to flower.
• If you’re too close you’re a danger. That’s why we’re going to sit far away.

Why the limitations on the short lenses:
These birds are small, inches as a mater of fact. If you’re 10 feet away, and you’re trying to photograph a bird that’s 2.5″ long and moving like greased lighting you need something at least in the vicinity of filling a 1/5th of the frame up with that bird to even get a chance of a decent picture. To give you an idea. Put two DD batteries on top of each other (AA will do in a pinch :-) ). Now go stand 10 feet back. Now try to compose a shot with a 200mm lens. That’s what you’re shooting.

You should actually bring a macro lens and a wide angel lens with you, just in case the birds don’t show up. That’s what is left to shoot there if no birds come.

Back to the suggestions:

WITH OUT flash:
1) Lens, focus on the flower you are setting up at, change your lens’ focus to “Manual Focus”. LOCK down your tripod.
2) White balance, (or just shoot RAW). The side of the 2nd building is pretty close to white, you can use that as your base.
3) Av, or Manual mode
4) F/Stop — f/11 (f/7.1 works as well) is a good starting point. == Why @ 9 feet a 300mm on a crop body at f/11 gives you Depth of field of 1″. Which is 0.5 inches in the back and 0.5 inches in the front of your subject.
5) In Manual — go for Shutter Speed, the maximum you can do. If you’re shooting RAW you can under expose by 1 stop and still bring it back with a little noise. When in doubt go for higher speed to freeze the bird. Don’t even imagine that you’ll freeze the wings this way. You won’t. Not even at 1/8000th.
6) If you have high speed drive, switch to it. You want the camera to take as many shots as it can as you press down on the remote.

WITH flash:
1) Lens, focus on the flower you are setting up at, change your lens’ focus to “Manual Focus”. LOCK down your tripod.
2) White balance, (or just shoot RAW). The side of the 2nd building is pretty close to white, you can use that as your base.
3) Manual Mode on the Camera
4) F/Stop — Start out @ f/7.1 and take a test shot after all of the setup is done and close down until you have a good histogram.
5) Shutter Speed – doesn’t really matter, but if it’s a nice day out go to your maximum sync speed. This is usually 1/200th or 1/250th. This will reduce the sun’s output as much as it can.
6) For the flash power, if you use the flash go to 1/4th power. If you use the camera, start off at -1 1/3 FEC. You want a tiny little flash to go off to freeze the bird that’s it. Increase/decrease based on the output of the histogram and the amount of light from the sun. The more sun is present, the more power you need to freeze the bird. Why? HIGHER POWER = slower recharge time. The slower you can shoot. Last thing you want is your flash to shutdown from the heat.
7) If you have a better beamer, use it. This is exactly the scenario it was designed for. Remember that you have to be using a 300mm or longer lens for it to work.

I’m not going to go into detail on why the Better Beamer is a good choice here, but you can do a search on the web and see thousands of articles on it.

I’ll be happy to answer any questions, on anything above or any other questions you may have.

P.S. FEC = Flash Exposure Compensation, EV = Camera Meter Exposure Compensation (two different things)