Requesting advice on how to successfully focus specifically on hummingbirds in flight.

[garymak]

Requesting advice on how to successfully focus specifically on hummingbirds in flight.

I’m asking this only of photographers with direct, successful experience specifically photographing hummingbirds in-flight for any tips and tricks you have found that have worked well with focusing issues.  

(Please, if you do not have direct, successful experience specifically photographing hummingbirds in-flight, then with all due respect and appreciation for your good intentions, please refrain from offering ideas, thoughts, conjectures, or other experiences with other birds or animals.)

Background: 

I have used 4 different methods for photographing hummingbirds in flight:

1) “The Usual”: high SS, medium ƒ-stop, high ISO. 

2) “Strobe for high speed shutter” with a high-shutter speed sync, a very low ISO, a very high ƒ-stop, utilizing the strobe burst of the flash (usually 1/10,000th or so) to stop-action the hummingbird in flight.  The high ƒ-stop also creates a much wider DoF in which to capture the bird in focus.

3) In turn, both of these methods have utilized 2 different types of focusing methodology: 

    A. Autofocus (various different settings and areas)

    B. Manual pre-focus on the area the hummingbird will most likely come and hover for a brief moment before setting down on the feeder.

All of these methods have yielded just 3-5 decent shots each, based purely on luck, because the main issue is FOCUSING.  The R5 auto-focus mechanism is the worst of the two, practically useless, as it simply isn’t fast enough or sophisticated enough to react to the sudden appearance of a tiny hummingbird and focus on it, and usually the autofocus misses the bird entirely and focuses on the farthest background item in the frame (the distant hedges.) Manual focus has worked the best, but still yielded only about half a dozen out of about 1,000 shots, only by luck of the hummingbird being in the exact plane of the pre-focused area.  All successes can be attributed entirely to “luck.”

Give the above, does anyone have any direct, successful experience specifically photographing hummingbirds in flight?  If so, what did you do differently that worked, or at least yielded better results than 5 lucky shots out of 1,000?  Thanks!

[Cman44]

You got some very good shots there. My hats off to the shot taken at 105mm. I had to look twice to see if that was correct. That is some very stealthy shooting. 

I've found that at feeders the Hummingbirds will often go to the yellow feeder flower (or opening depending on the type of feeder), and then fly in reverse 3" to 6". My hope is for eye tracking to stay on the eye, and for me to get some bursts of interesting contortions as it is stopped in midair for a split second.

At flowers they sometimes do that also though not nearly as often. They will fly from flower to the other not giving away wish are the ones with the nectar. I have tried to guess with very limited success. In the rare times when I guessed correctly those are the sharpest shots. I only had to go from the focus point on the flower to detecting the birds eye. I suggest if you can growing Turks Caps in a nice clump that gets good light in the morning. Lots of pollen gets on the foreheads of the Hummers. 

[Cman44]

Getting a high hit rate for Hummingbirds if very hard to do. You need to get the ones that pause at a flower for instance. Having a setup with trees and bushes as background is important to get the shots you want. 

My best shots have been at flowers that I placed within the area (my back deck) on hooks in pots. I have feeders up to draw them to the area. Sometimes I remove a few of the feeders to entice them to go to the flowers. Sometimes I get a vase and cut a stalk of Salvia or Turks Cap flowers sticking up. I try to shoot as level as possible. When they start going to the flowers I get a eye dropper and prime some of the flowers with sugar water that i also use for the feeders. No red stuff, please. 1 part sugar to 4 parts water. You can mix some 1-3 that might be even more enticing. 

As for settings you probably are good. I use back button focus, eye detection animals, 20 fps. A hassle to go through and have more cards on hand. It's time consuming , but satisfying when you start getting the shots. I don't use flash. I was scaring the heck out of the birds. 

I've been feeding them for over 30 years so they find there way to my house every year. From late August to early October is the migration. If I'm going to shoot I plan ahead to obtain the flowers. Good Luck

[garymak]

Thanks for the tips on the flowers!  I'm going to try that.  I liked the images others posted of the birds by the flowers instead of a plastic feeder.  I think the potted plant idea is great.  They are pretty well trained now year-round to come to the feeder, so doing a switch shouldn't be an issue.  (They might even view it as a nice change of pace?🤷‍♂️). Coming up on the short winter sun, so I'll stick with the feeder until late Spring and better sun.  That'll give me some time to figure out where to get some of the Salvia or Turks Cap flowers you mentioned.  Hopefully they are not considered "rare and exotic" and cost an arm & a leg...  Anyway, thanks for that tip!!!

[Cman44]

I don't think it will be too expensive. Turks Caps will come back every year. Not sure where you live. If in the south you can find a good morning light spot, and plant a few 1 gallon Turks Caps. They can get about 3 ft high by the fall migration. Mix in a few Salvia's. 1 gallons planted in spring. All will spread over the years with extra water you can get them going fairly fast. They give you opportunities for Hummingbirds, and butterflies. I have about 5 different butterfly varieties come to the Turks Caps. I use a 100-400 USM II and it doubles well for Hummingbirds and Butterflies.  Good luck

[Tom29]

My method is to use a wide aperture (fast shutter speed), a long lens, auto focus set with a single focus point located in the center of the frame, and hope for a sunny day. I also use a monopod for stability. I enjoy taking hummingbird photos in a garden setting as they frequent their favorite flowers. Usually I try to catch some blur in the wings to suggest movement, but posted below is an example with the wings completely frozen. With a 600mm lens I can usually stand motionless about 15-20 feet away from a popular flowering bush, the long lens makes a hovering hummingbird appear large in the frame and the AF has no trouble locking onto the moving bird. You can see more examples of my hummingbird photos at my Intagram @CaliforniaViewFinder. The hummingbirds don't always cooperate, but I use the same set up to take whatever birds I can find and very often that includes hummingbirds. I've recently swited to a Canon R5 Mark II but the example photots are taken with an older Nikon D750 with 100-600 mm lens.

[Cman44]

I like that the Salvia flower can be seen through the wing. Nice capture.

[garymak]

Great shot!  Love it. Seeing the flower through the wing is fabulous.  My compliments!  It's great that the hummingbird lined up in the plane of focus.  That's one reason I usually don't shoot with wide-open aperture - bokeh is great for blurring out the background but I don't like it for blurring out the subject of the image, in this case, the entire bird.  But, luck being luck, if it lines up, as with this, it works, giving you a fast shutter and lower ISO.  The other way, if you get it, it's a higher ISO, resulting in less cropping ability.  Thanks for sharing this terrific photo!

[Tom29]

Glad you liked the pic. Here’s another using the same method but a slightly slower shutter speed, leaving some blur in the wings. The depth of field is about 3 in which in this case is enough to capture the near bunch of flowers but blur the flowers in the background.