Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

Just wanted to post something that the Einsteins can do. Temperatures finally started dropping in the early mornings here in Arizona, I was able to get out last Sunday and try my 2 E640's out on what I had originally wanted them for. Only had one visitor before the sun came up and rendered the fast flash duration useless. These were at 40 ws in Action mode, about 8 feet away using the 8.5" reflector. These will be really great for future ventures into HBIF. I don't normally show feeder shots but wanted to show the stopping abilities of these bad boys. I'm excited with the possibilities of different light modifiers I can use plus adding a mini-vagabond later for out in the field excursions. Its going to be a great winter since we have 15 or so stay. Thanks Paul for creating this little marvel. :mrgreen:

Male Anna

One of my first shots with my Einsteins was a hummingbird to test out the Action mode. This one through my window. Just one light.

what was f stop on this pic?

Nicely done.
Always thought Einsteins would be great for hummingbirds. Wish we had some in Boston :-(

f/8. 80-200 f/2.8 lens at 200mm plus an extension tube.

Have to ask what the shutter speed was on these. Was it with an SLR with their slow sync speeds or something with electronic shutter that can sync so much faster?
Even with the fast flash time, I'd not expect such sharp frozen wings, unless the ambient light was very low or the shutter speed was very high.

Very cool photos.

You can see in all these shots that the flash was way brighter than the ambient. Given this, the shutter speed has little to do with stopping the wings.

t.1 is the "standard" for judging effective equivalent shutter speed under continuous lighting conditions. t.1 equates to 3.2f stops below full brightness. So if the flash is 3f brighter than the ambient you will see little blur from the ambient. This is not difficult to achieve in the shade, but can be difficult in direct bright sunlight.

Paul is correct. My shots were taken 10 minutes before sunrise. I was at F11 and 1/250 and iso 200 with a 70-200 F2.8 AFS. The difference here was over 5 stops between setting and ambient. The flashes were my shutter. Over 1/10000 of a second. I have been able to freeze a HB wings at even 1/6000. Whch means I can go upto around 80-ws per light. This allows me to have my lights more then 10 feet away and less threatening to the birds. Tomorrow morning hope to capture somemore before the migration is over. :P

My shot was taken in the evening. The bird and the background were in the shade of the house as the sun was low in the sky. There is grass, perhaps concrete sidewalk in the background of my shot, but so far under exposed it is too dark to be seen. The flash was the only significant light source here and action mode keeps the flash duration short.

Great shot Zemlin. One from this morning. Migration is starting to thin. Same setup as before except I moved one light to my right.