Hummingbirds - August 13

This isn't the best photo becasuse of the placement of the wing.  It does demonstrate the stopping power of the 550EX at 1/64 power.  The wings are frozen. Notice the detail in the feathers.

I set up 3 550EX Speedlites to photograph hummingbirds tonight.  They were triggered by Pocket Wizards.   I placed one light on each side of my target area.  The third light was placed above the center of the target.

When I started, I set the shutter speed to 1/8000 ISO 1000 f2.8.  This worked well - the speedlites provided fill.  When it was darker, I switched to using flash as my main light.  ISO was set at 200, aperture was set to f8 and shutter speed was set at 1/250.

The hummingbirds did not tolerate the flash - immediately flying away.  As it got darker, I lost all color in the background and depended completely on the speedlites.  Unfortunately one speedlight was not firing - it wasn't properly seated in the hot shoe.  Two speedlites were not adequate and my shadows increased as it got darker. 

1/8000 and high speed flash worked surprisingly well.  I definitely need to light the background in order to prevent a black background.  The flashes were able to stop the wings in most cases.  When I set the aperture to f8, the increased depth of field was very useful.

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This is my favorite shot today.