In my ongoing quest to photograph hummingbirds, I’m always experimenting with different lighting to create completely different looks. Obviously this is one with very different lighting than most of the hummer images I’ve posted in the past month. I wanted to create rim light on the flowers, stem and hummingbird. Partially successful with the best rim light on the stem. Still created some pretty good backlight on the hummer and flowers. Interested to hear if this more artistic kind of work is appealing or not.
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Canon 5D Mark IV
100-400 II @ 400mm
1/250 @ f/18, ISO 250
2 430 EX II flashes at 1/16 power
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I like this idea a lot, Keith and I think you nailed the flower and stem. The hummingbirds off wing and under tail puff ball are awesome, but for my taste the pose on the rest of the bird doesn’t work as well with this lighting. Maybe just a touch more light from the front?
I have been experimenting with this kind of lighting too but with natural light. I think this is not easy to pull off and more often than not, I end up with images that belong to the trash can. I think you have achieved a lot of good things in this image, Keith. Like Dennis, I adore what the backlighting does to the flower and the stem. I think the effect is super gorgeous. I can see what Dennis is saying about the pose of the bird but I am not sure what pose would improve it. Maybe if there is a way to still showcase the gorget in the head… Just thinking out loud here.
I’m in agreement with both Dennis and Adhika regarding the lighting on the bird. The green translucency under the left-wing would look better if similar lighting was on both the body and head. Still an appealing image.
