Humming Birds close-up? & Remote shutter for dimage

[gdelsalto]

Hi guys, it's so nice and cozy in here... all the photographtalk and the vibes and all:-)... I ljust love photography, I don't have much time to practice but I enjoy it a lot when I get the time to do it. Mostly I love close ups and night shots. I'm going after a humming bird family that comes tothe garden every day like hundreds of times. Just this weekend I catched a humming bird fight for territory that lasted for about 45 min. I really didn´t know what to do because we started to scare them away so they would stop fighting but it didn't work and they kept coming back so I finally choose to get my tripod and DC and took all the pics I could, I even got as near as 1 meter from them little birdies and they didn´t seem to care, they just kept fighting. They even rolled together like 1 inch from my head at one time, in their way to the grass. :-?(Sounds cruel to just stand there and watch them ... but I swear we tried to stop them with no luck!)

Anywayz, that's nature! 8)And since we have like 6 drinking thingies separated like 10 meters each, they finally came to their senses and spread, but I have to say that we´ve beenwatching them and they keep fighting from time to time, only not for ages now.

ooops I'm sorry for the long story, it was just to exciting for me :-)

Anywayz, my question is, does anyone has some advice for this kind of shot of a fast moving object and close-up?? I tried flash and fast speed but I would like to get better pics. I also would like to know if anyone has some info about where to get the Minolta dimage 5 remote shutter release? I`m not so brave to try to do the DIY one. I don´t mind if it´s used or new and I have someone to receive it at USA but if they ship it outside US it would be better.

Here´s one of my faves, myboyfriend took some splendid ones too, those are better but I don´town the copyright lol

Thanks a lot! See you guys !

[CastleDude]

1) If you told us where you are it might help (add it to your profile).

2) Ebay has them offered all the time new and used. A quick check showed that they can be picked up for about $20 there.
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3) To freeze actiongo to the highest f stop you can(f8 or more) to get as little light as possible, this way the strobe (which will only last for 1/10,000 sec) will be your shutter. The nice thing is also the higher f stop will giveyou a little better DOF.

If the light is really bright where you are then get a neutral density filter to drop the light down even more. Use a shutter speed recommended by your camera if you go too fast it may not work properly. You might want to look at the spec on your flash and consider getting an upgrade to one that has a shorter duration.

[JerryF]

CastleDude wrote:

3) To freeze actiongo to the highest f stop you can (f8 or more) to get as little light as possible, this way the strobe (which will only last for 1/10,000 sec) will be your shutter. The nice thing is also the higher f stop will giveyou a little better DOF.

???

To freeze action you'll want a small f stop number such as 2.8 so that the shutter speed will increase.

[Baz]

Jerry,

Usually your comment about shutter & aperture is correct.

But I think you may have missed the point of CastleDude's advice.

The suggestion was to use flash. Set the smallest aperture so that the available light will have minimal effect, hence the shot will mainly be exposed by the extemely fast flash exposure as stated. Seems a good idea, would you agree?

[gdelsalto]

Thanx a lot for your comments, I'll just practice :-)

I have been looking for the remote in ebay and other auction sitesand haven´t found it I live in mexico.

[gdelsalto]

Nevermind, I found an offer for the remote thanx!

[JerryF]

Baz wrote:

Jerry,

Usually your comment about shutter & aperture is correct.

But I think you may have missed the point of CastleDude's advice.

The suggestion was to use flash. Set the smallest aperture so that the available light will have minimal effect, hence the shot will mainly be exposed by the extemely fast flash exposure as stated. Seems a good idea, would you agree?

Yes, you are right. I'm always in my 'non-flash' thinking mode because I hardly use flash.