Hummingbirds are back! I need help!

I could've sworn I saw a hummingbird fly by me yesterday, but I wasn't sure. Not taking any chances I filled up the feeders and hung them outside. I didn't see any come to eat yesterday, but today I've seen at least 2. One I believe is a juvenile male and the other is an adult male. No females yet (unless the one I think is the juvenile is actually a female).

Anyway, I'm experimenting with an external flash on my camera and I love how it brightens up the photograph, but I don't know how (if it's even possible) to get a higher shutter speed to go along with it. I set my camera to go from 1/1000 to 1/1600, but with the flash it drops down to 1/200. As you're aware hummingbirds are very fast so having a good shutter speed is a must! Is it possible to get a high shutter speed at the same time as using a flash? This is the inexperienced side of me coming out so any help that can be offered would be very much appreciated!

Here are the pictures I've gotten so far.

#1 - Juvenile Male

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Mandy, shame on you. You asked for help then didn't list what camera and flash your using.

Ooops... I have an Xti with a 75-300mm lens. The flash is a Sunpak Digiflash 2000. I know this flash isn't top of the line, far from it I know, but it was what I could afford at the time and it's also the only one the store had to offer that would work with my camera!

Not familiar with either of those, but get your manuals out. I know the XTi should have a custom function to set flash sync from 1/250 or 1/200 Fixed to Auto. It needs to be set on Auto. The flash might be capable of E-TTL operation, and should have some kind of setting for HSS, High speed sync. It needs to be set on that.

Back to the camera, set it to Av Mode, and you want to be able to adjust exposure compensation. Hope that helps.

What those settings to is to allow the camera to control the amount of light from the flash, and use any shutter speed. It will work as "Fill Flash" which will shoot just enough light to fill in the shaded side, and not blow out the parts already lit by normal light.

Thanks Mitch... I'm just got done putting up some sticks to one of the pedestools near the feeder so I'm hoping one of them will perch on it long enough for me to get a still shot with the flash. If I'm successful I'll post the new shots.

Look for "high speed sync". I am not familiar with your equipemnt but that is a flash mode on my 580 EX.

You do not get the full power of the flash as the shutter is only open during part of the flash. Works great for fill flash!!

Well, I didn't have much luck figuring out this whole 'high speed syncing' thing. The flash I'm using doesn't have anything to set different modes with. It only has exposure +/- so I have no clue if it's even capable of doing what I'm trying to do. I'm also stuck with really poor lighting outside now since the sun has pretty much gone down so that's not helping either. Oh well... tomorrow's another day right?!

The branches I put out by the feeders are already a big with the hummers. Here are some "still" pictures that I got of a pair who are battling it out to claim the feeder. It was quite humorous to watch, but one of them flew right into the feeder pretty hard. It perched on one of the branches for a few minutes and then took off so hopefully it'll be ok.

#1 - Claiming his feeder while watching the other one flying overhead.

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I cant help you with the flash Mandy, but you are fortunate to have so many hummers in your yard. The exposure in #1 of your second set is perfect, so you had the flash set perfectly for that shot!

These look a lot better. Were you able to get the camera off of 1/200 Fixed?

You guys will love this. The last set was taken with the camera's built in flash. My external flash stopped firing (I think I shot off to many shots) so I took it off. I started a load of laundry and saw one of them sitting on a branch so I grabbed just my camera and went out.

Mitch, the flash stopped responding when I tried to do the 1/200 Fixed so I'll have to wait until tomorrow to try it out again. Hopefully, it'll work tomorrow.

Was the other option "Auto"?

Yes, I found it under Custom Functions. The message on my LCD screen says Flash Sync. speed in Av mode and the options are 0:Auto and 1:1/200sec. (fixed). This is what I'm supposed to be doing right?

Yes, set it to Auto for an external flash. I am not sure what happens when you use the built in flash. I know it will fire, but if it syncs, I don't know.

Well, I tried this again today and either I'm doing something wrong or this flash / camera combo isn't able to do what I'm trying to. There are a couple of other possibilities as well. I have this feeder set up in a partially shaded area. Could this be part of the problem as well?

The whole point of fill flash is so you can shoot in shadows. You should probably ask about this in the flash forum. There are people there who know about your flash.