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Check Out My Tail

These birds fly so much differently when they're flying to a feeder instead of a flower. Here the bird's preparing to land on a perch instead of hovering in front of a flower. If you press "L" on your keyboard or click on the picture, you can view the bird larger than life size. They're about the size of a ping pong ball and weight as much as a nickel.

 

I used three strobes on light stands to photograph the birds. I put one on either side of the feeder and one underneath pointed up to light the birds from below. It was an overcast day which meant I could turn down the power on the strobes as I wasn't competing against a bright sunlit background. Each strobe was at 1/16 power. The advantage of using lower power on the strobes when photographing these birds, is that you get a shorter flash duration which helps freeze the wings, (although it didn't in this image). I used a YN560-III, a YN560 and a Strobie 130. All strobes, in manual mode, were triggered by a Yongnuo RF-603N.

 

I've taken quite a few pictures of hummers over the years and put them an album creatively called Hummingbirds.

www.flickr.com/photos/9422878@N08/sets/72157627149575339/

 

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Uploaded on April 24, 2015
Taken on April 22, 2015