I have been trying to get some natural light shots of Hummingbirds I am really happy with, Its been an ongoing experiment. But I am finally getting things dialed in to where I am happy with the results, Thought I would share with others the concept.
My goal was to keep things simple with no flashes or outside light sources, just natural light.
I chose a natural background which was the drought stricken grass in the backyard, " No Rain"... This received 100% sunlight, the background color and brightness allowed for the bird to stand out nicely and also achieve maximum shutter speed due to its brightness.
The Bird and flower were in filtered sunlight. I metered off the flower and used Evaluate metering, with the 1DM4 and 600 F/4 Lens. I would pre focus on the flower and wait for opportune moments.
The bird was drawn to the flower with Sugar water placed in the trumpet portions of the flower. When they feed they have a tendency to back in and out of the flower, when the bird backed out I would fire bursts as it went in and out, I liked the separation this created between the bird and the flower.
I pre focused the camera on the flower and set my camera to manual mode and metered off the flower at - 1 1/3rd. this under exposed the bird and flower somewhat but did not blow the background offering a high key look.
In post I brought the bird and flowers exposure up to histogram levels as a separate layer, then overlayed the background to complete the image.
Its initially one image, with a slightly under exposed flower and bird with a basically properly exposed BG. this seemed to maximize shutter speed as well as details in the bird. then simply in post bringing exposure back and creating an overall image.
Camera settings and Equipment were:
1DM4 | 600 F/4| Iso 1000| F/6.3| 1/5000th | Natural light | 75% of original image
~Daniel Behm
Hope you like the result.
