Glancing at the old rusted mercury filled thermometer tacked to the wooden post, I could see that it was 101 degrees. And the worst part is, I am standing in the shade. A temperature over 100 is fairly normal for southeastern Arizona in August, which is where I am at this week. I am here at the hottest time of year to photograph some special critters–hummingbirds and nectar feeding bats. August is when both the hummingbirds and the bats are at their highest numbers that is because they migrate through this part of Arizona on their way south into Mexico.
During this blazing hot afternoon I am working on photographing hummingbirds but after sun down I will be photographing bats. This is how each day goes, day after day for the past 5 days. Up until 1 or 2 AM with the bats at night then get a few hours of sleep before waking at 5 AM to photograph hummingbirds.
In the eastern half of the country there is only one species of hummingbird. It is the Ruby-throated Hummingbird. It is a hardy species that has managed to colonize the entire half of the country well up into Canada. Here in Arizona there are 18 species of hummingbird. About 8 of these are fairly widespread and occur throughout the western half of the country while the rest are highly specialized and occur only in the southeastern corner of Arizona. These specialized species occur mainly in the tropics of Mexico and extend northward just barely reaching into the US in Arizona. This great diversity of hummingbirds is the reason I am here.
As I mentioned I am set up in the shade of a structure that has a large metal roof and no walls. Just six tall wooden poles to hold up the corrugated metal roof. It took nearly a day to set up all the flashes, four in all, and work out the details of all the camera and flash settings to take pictures of hummingbirds. The object is to take hummingbird pictures and freeze their wings perfectly still while the bird is in flight. You see, if you take a regular picture of a hummingbird while in flight it’s wings flap so fast that not even my cameras fast shutter speed is quick enough to stop the rapid motion of their wings. In the amount of time my camera’s shutter opens and allows enough light in to expose the image, and closes again, the hummingbirds wings have flapped about a dozen times creating blurred wings.
So what I am doing is fooling the camera by photographing in the shade. I have set up four high speed flashes to use as my primary light source. And now for the tricky part. I have set the flashes to give off a lot of light but only for a very short duration of time—about 1/3200 of a second. So when the hummingbird comes in and feeds at some flowers and I push the shutter lease, in the relative darkness of the shade, the camera’s shutter opens up and the high speed flashes go off. Only the short blast of light exposes the image not the daylight. So in other words the camera sees only what the flashes light up for that incredibly short moment of time and waa-la an image of a hummingbird with frozen wings.
I love photographing hummingbirds partly because hummingbirds are one of my favorite birds also for the challenge they bring to making beautiful pictures. Hummingbirds are so very different from other birds and I love their quickness and agility. I also enjoy how they buzz from one flower to the next sipping the tiniest drop of nectar. What’s not to admire about this tiny bird? Next time… I will write about the nectar feeding bats.