Zooming and the FAST hummingbird wing

I currently am using a Kodac DC3400 "old" digital camera with a 3X
optical zoom.
With my butterfly bushes, yes they attract hummingbirds, I currently
have to do the following and still get these unsatisfactory results
(yes I'm hoping for the world).
1) The hummingbirds flap their wings too fast, I get a blur on the
wings.
2) I have to act like a Special Forces, Delta Force, Navy Seal.....so I
can carefully sneak up and lie down and wait by the bush for a close up
(what fun, glad my property doesn't have too many vehicles traveling on
it).

What i'm wishing for is the following:

To be able to sit on my deck 50 feet away and take a picture of the
hummingbirds with the resulting pictu not having blurred wings and
that it looks like a real close-up.

Could someone tell me either: the general characteristics that could
accomplish this or specific cameras....e.g. what determines if
something fast is a blur or clear; what kind of zoom truly brings
things up close, clear and personal?
Also when I look at DSLR lenses I try to relate the zoom to my cheap
Kodak; meaning my Kokak says 3X optical....I was hoping the DSLR lens
would say 15X, 30X optical..... instead they always give numbers I
don't understand (is there a cross reference).

btw: never understood the digital zoom on my camera (totally blurry
when I try using, useless to me at least).

Thanks a lot

"dohc46" wrote in message
oups.com...
I currently am using a Kodac DC3400 "old" digital camera with a 3X
optical zoom.
With my butterfly bushes, yes they attract hummingbirds, I currently
have to do the following and still get these unsatisfactory results
(yes I'm hoping for the world).
1) The hummingbirds flap their wings too fast, I get a blur on the
wings.
2) I have to act like a Special Forces, Delta Force, Navy Seal.....so I
can carefully sneak up and lie down and wait by the bush for a close up
(what fun, glad my property doesn't have too many vehicles traveling on
it).

What i'm wishing for is the following:

To be able to sit on my deck 50 feet away and take a picture of the
hummingbirds with the resulting pictu not having blurred wings and
that it looks like a real close-up.

Could someone tell me either: the general characteristics that could
accomplish this or specific cameras....e.g. what determines if
something fast is a blur or clear; what kind of zoom truly brings
things up close, clear and personal?
Also when I look at DSLR lenses I try to relate the zoom to my cheap
Kodak; meaning my Kokak says 3X optical....I was hoping the DSLR lens
would say 15X, 30X optical..... instead they always give numbers I
don't understand (is there a cross reference).

btw: never understood the digital zoom on my camera (totally blurry
when I try using, useless to me at least).

Thanks a lot


For general tips on Hummingbird Photography, see my website at:

http://www.dyesscreek.com/miscellane...otography.html

You've asked several questions and I'll try to answer what I can. First,
let's look at what you want to do:

To be able to sit on my deck 50 feet away and take a picture of the
hummingbirds with the resulting pictu not having blurred wings and
that it looks like a real close-up.

There are several components here, so I'll start with blurred wings. If you
want the freeze the wings you are going to need a lot of light. This is so
because you will need a very short exposure time. You can try to accomplish
this with a fast shutter speed, and you can achieve a measure of success,
but if you truly want frozen wings, you will almost have to use flash. See
the following page for an opinionated explanation:

http://www.dyesscreek.com/miscellane...s/howto_1.html

Fortunately, you can set up a few flash units near your butterfly bush and
get photos like the ones I took at my butterfly bush:

http://www.dyesscreek.com/hummingbir...s/CRW_0649.htm
http://www.dyesscreek.com/hummingbir.../CRW_0637a.htm

A 400mm, f/5.6 lens can accomplish these photos from about 15-20 feet away
allowing for enough pixes on a Canon 10D for an acceptable 5x7 print from
the crop.

50 feet away is long way away from a hummingbird. It would be a lot less
expensive to move the butterfly bush closer to the deck than to buy the
glass that will give you the image you want from that distance. Check out
the following page for a few tips:

http://www.dyesscreek.com/miscellane...ps_tricks.html

and this page for some more tips:

http://www.dyesscreek.com/miscellane...ick_start.html

What you want to do is possible. However, I suggest that you study up on
equipment a little more. For example, the reason that your "digital zoom"
doesn't seem to work is because its just a marketing ploy, it really doesn't
exist in the sense that the term is a misnomer. What it describes is nothing
more than cropping with possibly some interpolation to add pixels that
don't add image detail.

"Zoom" relates to the ability to change focal length, not necessarily to a
long "focal length." The longer the focal length, the more "magnification."
Focal length is expressed in millimeters and the higher the number, the more
magnification. The numbers used for digital cameras such as 10x or 15x zoom
mean that the lens referenced can be changed from its shortest focal length
to a focal length that is 10x longer. The numbers don't necessarily
correlate to the ability to magnify and can't be compared without knowing
the focal length equivalents of the lenses being compared. For example, a
lens that zooms from 3mm to 30mm is a 10x zoom. So is a lens that zooms from
10mm to 100mm. 100mm will provide much more apparent "magnification" than
30mm, all other things (read sensor size) being equal. There really isn't
any substitute for educating yourself on these concepts and others might
have some good recommendations for beginner photography books for this
purpose.

If you just want an equipment recommendation, get the following:

Canon 20D (DSLR Camera)
Canon EF 100-400mm f/5.6L IS USM (Lens)
Canon 580ex (Flash Unit)
Better Beamer Flash Extender
A 2gb 80x Compact Flash Card
Bogen 3216 Monopod and 3232 Swivel Tilt Head

I only know Canon equipment but I'm sure you can find just as good
equivalent equip from Nikon, Olympus, Minolta, Pentax and whoever else that
I forgot to mention.

This will get you to 20 feet away. I f you really want to get closer, move
that butterfly bush closer to the deck or get a good feeder.

Eric Miller

On 11/30/05 9:52 PM, in article
, "dohc46"
wrote:

I currently am using a Kodac DC3400 "old" digital camera with a 3X
optical zoom.
With my butterfly bushes, yes they attract hummingbirds, I currently
have to do the following and still get these unsatisfactory results
(yes I'm hoping for the world).
1) The hummingbirds flap their wings too fast, I get a blur on the
wings.
2) I have to act like a Special Forces, Delta Force, Navy Seal.....so I
can carefully sneak up and lie down and wait by the bush for a close up
(what fun, glad my property doesn't have too many vehicles traveling on
it).

What i'm wishing for is the following:

To be able to sit on my deck 50 feet away and take a picture of the
hummingbirds with the resulting pictu not having blurred wings and
that it looks like a real close-up.

Could someone tell me either: the general characteristics that could
accomplish this or specific cameras....e.g. what determines if
something fast is a blur or clear; what kind of zoom truly brings
things up close, clear and personal?
Also when I look at DSLR lenses I try to relate the zoom to my cheap
Kodak; meaning my Kokak says 3X optical....I was hoping the DSLR lens
would say 15X, 30X optical..... instead they always give numbers I
don't understand (is there a cross reference).

btw: never understood the digital zoom on my camera (totally blurry
when I try using, useless to me at least).

Thanks a lot


3X or 5X optical zoom says very little about how close, or how much
telephoto effect, that you will get. These are just relative terms that
describe the difference between the widest angle and longest telephoto
effect that your camera will produce. For example a lens that has a 35mm
wide-angle setting that is described as a 3X zoom would have a telephoto end
of 105mm.
DSLR lens' are not described that way at all. These lens' will be described
purely in millimeters. A wide-angle lens would be something less than 50mm,
24mm for example. A lens classified as telephoto would start at about 135mm
and upward (some may argue that a tele lens starts at less than that).
Wildlife photographers will typically use a lens of 300, 400, 500, 600 mm or
sometimes even longer.
Now the bad news! You want to take hummingbird pictures at 50 feet. Going
all the way up to a 600mm lens (a very expensive lens let alone the cost of
the camera) your field of view is narrowed down to a little more than 4
degrees. While I really don't know how many degrees a hummingbird occupies
at 50 feet I would guess, based on their extreme small size, that they
occupy less than 1 degree. So at 50 feet, even with a 600mm lens, the bird
would be considerably less than frame filling.
As far as imaging the bird so as to minimize wing flap very fast shutter
speeds are required. By very fast I am talking about 1/6000 or 1/8000 of a
second.
Chuck

dohc46 wrote:
I currently am using a Kodac DC3400 "old" digital camera with a 3X
optical zoom.
With my butterfly bushes, yes they attract hummingbirds, I currently
have to do the following and still get these unsatisfactory results
(yes I'm hoping for the world).
1) The hummingbirds flap their wings too fast, I get a blur on the
wings.
2) I have to act like a Special Forces, Delta Force, Navy
Seal.....so
I can carefully sneak up and lie down and wait by the bush for a
close up (what fun, glad my property doesn't have too many vehicles
traveling on it).

What i'm wishing for is the following:

To be able to sit on my deck 50 feet away and take a picture of the
hummingbirds with the resulting pictu not having blurred wings
and
that it looks like a real close-up.

Could someone tell me either: the general characteristics that could
accomplish this or specific cameras....e.g. what determines if
something fast is a blur or clear; what kind of zoom truly brings
things up close, clear and personal?
Also when I look at DSLR lenses I try to relate the zoom to my cheap
Kodak; meaning my Kokak says 3X optical....I was hoping the DSLR
lens
would say 15X, 30X optical..... instead they always give numbers I
don't understand (is there a cross reference).

btw: never understood the digital zoom on my camera (totally blurry
when I try using, useless to me at least).

Thanks a lot

You've come to the right place: there are a few _very_ accomplished
(understatement) hummingbird photographers here. We can only aspire to
their skills, talent, and product.

For my part, I keep trying. Here are a couple from a Canon 20D,
70-300mm DO IS combination, distance about 20 feet. Both are crops,
the first more aggressive than the second:
http://static.flickr.com/30/50562062_4633626c95_o.jpg
http://www.fototime.com/EAF6A1F2ACA5E84/orig.jpg

Both lack tack-sharp focus, but the 1/1600 and 1/800 did stop the
motion, mostly. These are almost good, and from a 200-image hour of
sitting and clicking.

Here's one with the 20D and a 70-200mm 2.8L USM IS with 2X convertor:
http://static.flickr.com/32/44166151_27620a3cfe_o.jpg

Better in a few ways, but still a crop, pretty far from a full-frame.
This was a long session made even longer by the weight of the
camera/lens combo.

Lessons to be learned a 300 or 400mm is not long enough; expensive
equipment is OK in good hands, only becoming excellent in trained,
gifted hands; pleasuring oneself is easier, if not more rewarding,
than meeting stringent - even unrealistic - standards; even a blind
pig finds an acorn from time to time, I devoutly hope.

In reality, money won't do it, dedication won't do it; money _and_
dedication, _and_ application of generous gobs of time and organized
learning might disguise a certain deficit in the talent department and
yield a few "Ooohs and Aaahs".

To summarize: If one doesn't take great pleasure in the process (and
it seems to me you do), one must very shortly abandon the effort as a
vain exercise.

--
Frank ess

"millereric" wrote in message
. ..

"dohc46" wrote in message
oups.com...
I currently am using a Kodac DC3400 "old" digital camera with a 3X
optical zoom.
With my butterfly bushes, yes they attract hummingbirds, I currently
have to do the following and still get these unsatisfactory results
(yes I'm hoping for the world).
1) The hummingbirds flap their wings too fast, I get a blur on the
wings.
2) I have to act like a Special Forces, Delta Force, Navy Seal.....so I
can carefully sneak up and lie down and wait by the bush for a close up
(what fun, glad my property doesn't have too many vehicles traveling on
it).

What i'm wishing for is the following:

To be able to sit on my deck 50 feet away and take a picture of the
hummingbirds with the resulting pictu not having blurred wings and
that it looks like a real close-up.

Could someone tell me either: the general characteristics that could
accomplish this or specific cameras....e.g. what determines if
something fast is a blur or clear; what kind of zoom truly brings
things up close, clear and personal?
Also when I look at DSLR lenses I try to relate the zoom to my cheap
Kodak; meaning my Kokak says 3X optical....I was hoping the DSLR lens
would say 15X, 30X optical..... instead they always give numbers I
don't understand (is there a cross reference).

btw: never understood the digital zoom on my camera (totally blurry
when I try using, useless to me at least).

Thanks a lot


For general tips on Hummingbird Photography, see my website at:

http://www.dyesscreek.com/miscellane...otography.html

You've asked several questions and I'll try to answer what I can. First,
let's look at what you want to do:

To be able to sit on my deck 50 feet away and take a picture of the
hummingbirds with the resulting pictu not having blurred wings and
that it looks like a real close-up.

There are several components here, so I'll start with blurred wings. If
you
want the freeze the wings you are going to need a lot of light. This is so
because you will need a very short exposure time. You can try to
accomplish
this with a fast shutter speed, and you can achieve a measure of success,
but if you truly want frozen wings, you will almost have to use flash. See
the following page for an opinionated explanation:

http://www.dyesscreek.com/miscellane...s/howto_1.html

Fortunately, you can set up a few flash units near your butterfly bush and
get photos like the ones I took at my butterfly bush:

http://www.dyesscreek.com/hummingbir...s/CRW_0649.htm
http://www.dyesscreek.com/hummingbir.../CRW_0637a.htm

A 400mm, f/5.6 lens can accomplish these photos from about 15-20 feet away
allowing for enough pixes on a Canon 10D for an acceptable 5x7 print from
the crop.

50 feet away is long way away from a hummingbird. It would be a lot less
expensive to move the butterfly bush closer to the deck than to buy the
glass that will give you the image you want from that distance. Check out
the following page for a few tips:

http://www.dyesscreek.com/miscellane...ps_tricks.html

and this page for some more tips:

http://www.dyesscreek.com/miscellane...ick_start.html

What you want to do is possible. However, I suggest that you study up on
equipment a little more. For example, the reason that your "digital zoom"
doesn't seem to work is because its just a marketing ploy, it really
doesn't
exist in the sense that the term is a misnomer. What it describes is
nothing
more than cropping with possibly some interpolation to add pixels that
don't add image detail.

"Zoom" relates to the ability to change focal length, not necessarily to a
long "focal length." The longer the focal length, the more
"magnification."
Focal length is expressed in millimeters and the higher the number, the
more
magnification. The numbers used for digital cameras such as 10x or 15x
zoom
mean that the lens referenced can be changed from its shortest focal
length
to a focal length that is 10x longer. The numbers don't necessarily
correlate to the ability to magnify and can't be compared without knowing
the focal length equivalents of the lenses being compared. For example, a
lens that zooms from 3mm to 30mm is a 10x zoom. So is a lens that zooms
from
10mm to 100mm. 100mm will provide much more apparent "magnification" than
30mm, all other things (read sensor size) being equal. There really isn't
any substitute for educating yourself on these concepts and others might
have some good recommendations for beginner photography books for this
purpose.

If you just want an equipment recommendation, get the following:

Canon 20D (DSLR Camera)
Canon EF 100-400mm f/5.6L IS USM (Lens)
Canon 580ex (Flash Unit)
Better Beamer Flash Extender
A 2gb 80x Compact Flash Card
Bogen 3216 Monopod and 3232 Swivel Tilt Head

I only know Canon equipment but I'm sure you can find just as good
equivalent equip from Nikon, Olympus, Minolta, Pentax and whoever else
that
I forgot to mention.

This will get you to 20 feet away. I f you really want to get closer, move
that butterfly bush closer to the deck or get a good feeder.

Eric Miller


Thanks for the great info Eric. My mother adores hummingbirds and never
could get decent pics. I will forward your page to her.

Chris

"dohc46" writes:
2) I have to act like a Special Forces, Delta Force, Navy Seal.....so I
can carefully sneak up and lie down and wait by the bush for a close up
(what fun, glad my property doesn't have too many vehicles traveling on it).

You don't have to be that sneaky. Get a hummingbird feeder that you
put sugar water into. You can walk right up to them when they're
feeding.

To be able to sit on my deck 50 feet away and take a picture of the
hummingbirds with the resulting pictu not having blurred wings and
that it looks like a real close-up.

Forget it. Get in real close and use a powerful flash to freeze the
motion.

I'm sure that some of the roolytruly nature photo guys who frequent this den
of misinformation (!) will have other replies for you, possibly with more
useful details, but here's my contribution.

I'm no expert on the hummingbird (never even seen one; I'm no expert on
native Aussie birds either), but a little brief research (!!)
(www.googleisyourfriend)showed me that the hummingbird's wings flap at approx
80 beats/sec. That means that to get the wings frozen in motion you'll need a
real camera, with a seriously fast shutter speed, and to zoom in close you'll
need a real lens - at least 300mm, I would guess, with a good f-number too.
Or, build yourself a hide and wait patiently, just like a roolytruly nature
photographer has to. I don't think the Kodak has much chance of capturng any
sort of useful image. In the immortal words of Bob Heinlein - There ain't no
such thing as a free lunch.

For your further education, have a look here

http://www.moosepeterson.com/phototi...mingbirds.html

and I'm sure that if you go to www.google.com and type in 'photographing
hummingbirds', just like I did, you'll find some more references.


And don't worry about 'digital zoom' - turn it off then zoom in on your
computer instead - much better picture quality that way. I only use my digi
zoom setting when I've left my binoculars at home - about all it's good for.


RobG



"dohc46" wrote a whole pile of stuff...

RobG writes:
and I'm sure that if you go to www.google.com and type in 'photographing
hummingbirds', just like I did, you'll find some more references.

I don't remember ever getting any good still shots of hummingbirds
(not even sure if I tried to take any) but I've shot some nice video
of them with a cheap camcorder. No frozen wings but it showed the
birds pretty well.

millereric wrote:

For general tips on Hummingbird Photography, see my website at:

http://www.dyesscreek.com/miscellane...otography.html

Very nice.

dohc46 wrote:

I currently am using a Kodac DC3400 "old" digital camera with a 3X
optical zoom.
With my butterfly bushes, yes they attract hummingbirds, I currently
have to do the following and still get these unsatisfactory results
(yes I'm hoping for the world).
1) The hummingbirds flap their wings too fast, I get a blur on the
wings.
2) I have to act like a Special Forces, Delta Force, Navy Seal.....so I
can carefully sneak up and lie down and wait by the bush for a close up
(what fun, glad my property doesn't have too many vehicles traveling on
it).

What i'm wishing for is the following:

To be able to sit on my deck 50 feet away and take a picture of the
hummingbirds with the resulting pictu not having blurred wings and
that it looks like a real close-up.

Could someone tell me either: the general characteristics that could
accomplish this or specific cameras....e.g. what determines if
something fast is a blur or clear; what kind of zoom truly brings
things up close, clear and personal?
Also when I look at DSLR lenses I try to relate the zoom to my cheap
Kodak; meaning my Kokak says 3X optical....I was hoping the DSLR lens
would say 15X, 30X optical..... instead they always give numbers I
don't understand (is there a cross reference).

btw: never understood the digital zoom on my camera (totally blurry
when I try using, useless to me at least).

Thanks a lot

I have a suggestion that others haven't made:

If your camera has a remote control (wireless or otherwise), put it on a
tripod next to the hummingbird feeder and use the remote to take
pictures. This way you can sit as far away as the remote allows.

The way to relate the zoom on your camera to a zoom lens on a DSLR is as
follows: Open up the manual for your camera, and it will tell you a 35mm
equivalent focal length for your camera's lens. Google leads me to your
camera's manual:

http://www.kodak.com/global/en/servi...erManual/ch113.
shtml...

....which tells us that the focal length for your camera's lens is (and I
quote): "38 to 76 mm f 8.1 - f 15.3 (35 mm equivalent)"

So your camera has a lens that can register an angle of view roughly
equivalent to a 38-76mm zoom lens on a camera using 35mm film.

The longer the lens, measured in millimeters, the narrower the angle of
view, so you can compare your 76mm maximum zoom to a 300mm or even 600mm
lens such as those being discussed in response to your post... It's a
pretty significant difference.

And to toot my own horn, inconsequential though it may be, here's an
image I took with a Tamron SP 80-200mm/2.8 with a 2x teleconverter (an
extra lens that effectively doubles the focal length of the lens):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mile23/58868826/

Firing the flash didn't help stop the wings, mostly because I was so far
away and I was using the on-camera flash. The camera's on a tripod and
I'm just sitting next to it, waiting for the bird to come back from time
to time.