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I have a EOS Rebel XT and an EF70-300mm F4-5.6 IS USM.

I do a hummer shoot once per month where I sit on my patio and shoot about 700 pictures over a period of about 5 hours.  In each of my prior shoots I would use the auto focus on a hashed piece of paper, turn off the auto focus and start clicking away on full auto.  I have never used the raw setting.  I am targeting to do my shoot on Sunday so I have some time to absorb what you guys want me to do.  I will have a feeder in full sun with three out of four feeding holes covered forcing all the birds to a single location.  The open feeding hole will be perpendicular to the camera so 90% of the time I will get a profile of the bird.  I will have my camera mounted on a tripod with a cable shutter release.  

Since I won't be holding the camera can I turn off the image stabilizer?  Will that buy me anything? 

Depth of focus needs to be 12" (+/- 6" from where the hummers will sit)

Field of view is about 12" wide by 8" high.  

How far away should I set up the camera?

What would you suggest my camera settings should be?

I have time to experiment, so fire away.

 

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Latest Birds: Black-throated Green Warbler, Pine Warbler, Eastern Kingbird, Rufous-backed Robin, Crissal Thrasher

Hi Matt

Shooting hummers isn't about the shutter speed in order to get good hummer shots it is all about the lights (flashes) it is the flash that stops the wings.

It is in itself completely different from shooting most wildlife and birds.

Distance wise with a 300mm lens you need to be 8feet or closer closer would be better you can back off your focal length a bit then your images shouldn't be soft as they can be at the full 300mm. I would also use a fstop of f8 at the min.

Here is a good link on shooting hummers there are a few out there if you Google hummingbird photography

http://www.rpphoto.com/howto/hummer/humguide1.asp

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My New Avatar is in memory of Nancy my darling wife of 10 years who passed away on Monday November the 16th 2009 after an illness

My photo gallery http://thekiwi.org/photography/index.php

I was really skeptical of the four-five flashes needed, but I guess he makes some interesting arguments.  If you have to use low power, but you still want enough light, you need several flashes at low power to get you there.

I can also imagine how an array of flashes can really bring out the color of a hummingbird.  I've used flash for color on birds before with great results.

My guess is that Matt doesn't have an external flash, though (let alone four or five), so we'll have to go with shutter speed for Sunday. 

Matt, If you're really all about stopping the wings, the easiest thing to do is set your camera on Shutter priority, and set your shutter speed as fast as it will go.  My guess is yours stops at 1/4000", which is almost (though not quite) fast enough, according to Kiwi's link.  The problem with this is that Shutter priority is going to vary the aperture, and hence, the depth of field, so you may not get the depth of field you need this way.

The next thing to try is going manual.  Set the shutter as fast as you can, and set the aperture to whatever you need for the depth of field you want.  Now, you probably won't get the exposure you need this way, so you'll probably have to vary your ISO setting to get the right exposure.

If it's really bright and sunny, you'll probably end up with an ISO of around 1600 at f/8 aperture (based on the sunny f/16 rule).  This will be a bit noisy, but you should get close to the stopping power you want.  Once you get a feel for this, you can play around with the settings and see how good you can get the images.  By then, you'll probably be ready to go buy a few flash units  

I'd probably go ahead and turn of the IS.  I don't have personal experience, but I've heard that you can get sharper images if you disable it when you don't need it.  At 1/4000" shutter, it's not going to do you any good anyway.  I don't have any suggestion on where to place the camera.  I'd guess that you have a better feel for this than I do in this particular case.

Don't forget to post the photos!  

One more thing.  Since you're shooting in bright sunlight, you may have an issue with contrast, where the light from the top of the subject (the side facing the sun) will be much brighter than the light below (the side in shadow), and this will screw up your exposure (you'll either get blown out highlights or overly-deep shadows).  If you can, I'd try setting up some kind of reflector (just improvise with a sheet of white paper or poster board) below where the subject will be.  This should bounce a lot of light back up toward the subject and hopefully smooth out the contrast a bit.

This is another case where it might help to play around with a stand-in subject before the actual day.

Matt- The technical  things the other guys covered..but..
you are in for a treat. first thing i would suggest is park yourself 2 feet from the feeder. 28-70mm lens.or whatever the kit lens is...(Lens barrel distortion is nothing at this range) .tripod  level with the perch. believe me, the hummers don't care if you are there or not. they will feed. Stand still. Put your camera on macro.--(if you judge it right, it will be the perfect distance.) don't refocus until the bird is there..when the bird appears, press the button halfway to focus then...i dont use a cable...you spot the guy through the LCD not the viewfinder...when you shoot, you don't move anything but the finger, while watching the bird through the screen.and , over the camera.. shoot continuous...don't make the target area too small..they drink, then back out and hover.. then dart back in..allow for that... As far as using a flash, i would not recommend it at all.. the feathers reflect light, that is how the colors are what they are...don't leave the stabilizer on, while on the tripod.
this is how i do it.. it works for me great. the biggest thing is be Patient...the real thrill is sounds, and sights and excitement of doing it. and you will get great photos. Be sure to let us see the results...oh, yeah, one important thing.Don't shoot with a high contract background..like the sky. it will fool the exposure meter...

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http://whatbird.com/forums/photos/early_summers_birds/
IM: oldguyrich

The flash units are pricey but in order to get the humming bird shots that stop the wings you need that strobe lighting, Most humming bird photographers recoment 5 flash units but they say you can get great shots using 3 units.

That is if you want to take great hunmming bird shots if you only want to take hummingbird shots then use the hihest shutter speed you can with the smallest aperture you can get as close as you can set your camera and tripod set the lens to manual focus pre focus on the area where the hunmmers will be ans use your cable or remote shutter release. The smaller you can make your aperture the greater the depth of field so if you have slightly missed on your prefocus things should still be in focus due to the small aperture but you also need that fast shutter speed.

If you had 3 flash units then shutter speed is not imporant you will still stop the wings at even 1/160 sec.

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My New Avatar is in memory of Nancy my darling wife of 10 years who passed away on Monday November the 16th 2009 after an illness

My photo gallery http://thekiwi.org/photography/index.php

Just the kind of feedback I was looking for.  I will experiment for a few shots on Friday and report back.  I read the internet article regarding flash units and found it very interesting.  I do not have that flash capability and am not trying to get publish quality shots.  I am taking shots just for identification (life list) because I can't do field ID's (colorblind), especially for hummers. 

I assume that depth of field for one aperture setting is different at 5' vs 10'.  Is there an equation or table I can create to determine depth of field at various distances?  Would love to simply set to f8, measure to the sweet spot, and be done with it. 

What I am after is P10, the shape of the outer wing primary and the tail pattern.  I am partially through my tail review and have attached an example. 

                                           ANHU AHY M            ANHU HY M

f stop                                          16                            18

speed                                     1/1600                        1/2000

ISO                                          1600                           1600

Exp Bias                                 +0.3                            +0.3

focal length                                120mm                   140mm

program mode                             normal                     normal

I had auto focused then set it to manual.  I had the IS on but will turn it off for future tripod shots.  The only override I did was the exposure bias because a friend of mine stated that I could get more details that way, everything else was automatic.  In hindsight, I needed to do that because the background would have caused me to underexpose the bird.

I really like the idea of a white board under the bird, I will add that for sure.  

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Latest Birds: Black-throated Green Warbler, Pine Warbler, Eastern Kingbird, Rufous-backed Robin, Crissal Thrasher

Matt:

I assume that depth of field for one aperture setting is different at 5' vs 10'.

Aside from lens aperture, the depth of field is dependent on magnification.  Magnification varies with both the focal length of your lens, and the focus distance to the subject, so if you change either of these, your depth of field will change.  (This is the long way of answering "yes" to your question)

 

Matt:

Is there an equation or table I can create to determine depth of field at various distances?  Would love to simply set to f8, measure to the sweet spot, and be done with it. 

I'm no optics expert, but take a look at this wikipedia article. 

Basically, it depends on the lens aperture and magnification.  Magnification is a function of focal length and the size of your image plane.  Also the "circle of confusion" of the optics comes into play, which I'm having trouble grasping.  It seems that you can plug in 0.019 for that value on a DX-format sensor (full 35-mm frame would be 0.033).

Don't ask me to explain any more than that   

 

Matt:

What I am after is P10, the shape of the outer wing primary and the tail pattern.  I am partially through my tail review and have attached an example. 

Yeah, the primaries are certainly going to be tougher to stop than the tail     You'll have to do all you can to get up to 1/4000", or at least 1/2000".  I looked up your camera specs.  It's unfortunate that the XT can only go up to 1600 ISO.  Even though you'd get more noise, an extra stop of ISO would probably come in handy.

 

Matt:

I had auto focused then set it to manual.  I had the IS on but will turn it off for future tripod shots.  The only override I did was the exposure bias because a friend of mine stated that I could get more details that way, everything else was automatic.  In hindsight, I needed to do that because the background would have caused me to underexpose the bird.

Keep in mind that if you do go to full manual metering (where you set shutter, aperture, and ISO manually), the exposure bias won't actually do anything.  You're making all the exposure decisions yourself, so there's nothing for the camera to bias for you.

Thank you all for the time and effort placed on these responses.  I will experiment tomorrow for my Sunday shoot.  Will certainly let you know the results.  I have Anna's here year around, hope to catch some migratory ones this time.

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Latest Birds: Black-throated Green Warbler, Pine Warbler, Eastern Kingbird, Rufous-backed Robin, Crissal Thrasher

Matt:

Thank you all for the time and effort placed on these responses.  I will experiment tomorrow for my Sunday shoot.  Will certainly let you know the results.

So, how did it go?  

 

Matt:

I have Anna's here year around, hope to catch some migratory ones this time.

Hummers are one family that's largely missing here.  We've got Ruby-Throats, and that's pretty much it.

I was diverted on Friday so ran a double session today.  Initial observations while the pictures are downloading....

Shooting while capturing RAW really puts a damper on hummer shots.  I realize that there is camera speed and memory speed.  Several times I needed to take the 6th (not sure of that number) shot of a series and was held up, this was a first time experience for me.  

Setting the camera on aperture priority (first time experience) at f-8 I had to immediately speed up my ISO from 1600 to 800.  Problem was that there were cloud wisps rather than the usual bright sun so was not able to maintain an optimal setting.  

Also set the camera on shutter priority at 4000, also a first for me.  Nothing to report on that until I see the shots.  

I used the kit lens (18-55mm) as suggested.  I put the lens setting on close-up (I think that was the macro comment???) and used the flash.  I was probably about 18" from the landing.  Preliminary report is that I finally validated a AHY male black-chinned due to a tail shot (snuck a peek during the download).  Hopefully got the shot of purple in one of my shots although that is really asking a lot.

Really got to put it to those professional wildlife photographers, patience of Job, artist, and technician.  Will post the highlights later this evening.  Thanks all for a very interesting shoot.  

 

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Latest Birds: Black-throated Green Warbler, Pine Warbler, Eastern Kingbird, Rufous-backed Robin, Crissal Thrasher

Well, >tap, tap, tap< we are waiting...We really aren't a very patient group ya know...

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http://whatbird.com/forums/photos/early_summers_birds/
IM: oldguyrich

Seriously! 

I saw birdseye's message and laughed, saw lyceel's and laughed some more.  You east coast guys need to stay up later.

Alright, the report. 

Here is my best shot using birdseye's suggestions.  This was the 18-55mm lense with the camera set on the close-up setting.  I focused and then changed the focus to manual, there was no IS on this lens.  This morning there wasn't much light variability.  All my shots were f/16, 1/200 sec, ISO-400.  

This is an AHY male Anna's.  Main field marks are the gorget, with moderate exptensions, and crown showing the same color.

Only cropped, no post processing. 

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Latest Birds: Black-throated Green Warbler, Pine Warbler, Eastern Kingbird, Rufous-backed Robin, Crissal Thrasher

Beautiful shot!  The lighting looks nice and even, did you end up using a reflector below the feeder?

1/200" shutter obviously isn't enough to stop the wings, but stopping the wings isn't necessary for a great photo.  Nice work!