Hummingbirds

My husband, kiddo, and I went out to a friend's house in Corydon and spent the evening hanging around outside.  I enjoyed this opportunity because it gave me a chance to just sit down and play with some of the settings on my camera and to see how these settings affected the picture.  One of the things that I was able to get several pictures of was some hummingbirds that were coming to a feeder in the backyard.  First, let me say that hummingbirds move so fast that it was an accomplishment for me just to get them into a photo.  As soon as I would get the photo lined up the bird would be gone.  It was an experience for sure!

Below are several hummingbird pictures that I was able to take.  The pictures were all taken with different settings.  The most important camera setting for these photos was the shutter speed.  With slower shutter speeds (around 1/100 or 1/125) the wings look blurred because the shutter is open too long.  With the faster shutter speeds (around 1/1000 or 1/1250) I was able to avoid the blur of the wings but with the consequence of my photos turning out darker.

The balance between aperture, shutter speed, and ISO is a constant struggle and something that I work with every time I use the camera.  The aperture greatly affects the amount of light that enters the camera; therefore, changes in this will have a huge impact on how bright or dark your photo is.  Aperture (which is indicated with an F# as seen below) is probably the most confusing thing to me (and probably many other beginning photographers) because it works opposite from what you would think.  A higher aperture lets in less light.  A lower aperture lets in more light.  Shutter speeds are mostly concerned with movement, but also influence the amount of light entering the camera (as noted in one of the pictures below).  ISO deals with the sensitivity to light and is something that I am still learning to balance.  A higher ISO is typically used when it is darker so that you can gather more light, but also results in a very grainy picture (noted below).  Keep in mind that I am definitely far from an expert on any of this, so if you happen to know more than I do and can explain it better.. please do.  I want to learn as much as I can about these settings and how to use them.

If you did not fall asleep in the technical info, let's take a look at those photos.  I will list the shutter speed, aperture, and ISO used in each photo for reference.

1/100s, f7.1, 400 ISO

As you can see, the wings are very blurry but the picture has beautiful color and is bright.  1/100s is too slow when trying to stop movement in a photo and did not stop the motion of the wings.  400 ISO was probably too high since I was outside, but it was getting dark outside.

1/125s, f5.6, 400 ISO  

1/125s shutter speed is not much faster than the previous 1/100s so the blur of the wings is expected.

 1/320s, f5.6, 800 ISO

Once you get to 800 ISO or higher the photos start to look grainy.  This photo actually turned out really well. I was able to blur out the background and prevent some of the blur in the wings.  The photo is a little darker, but not too bad.

1/1000s, f5.6, 800 ISO

 There is very little (if any) blur on these wings.  The shutter speed was set to 1/1000s, which in English means very fast.  1/1000 of a second.  I can't even imagine the speed on that.  I knew this picture would be darker so I bumped up the ISO to 800.  You can start to see that grainy look in the photo.

1/1250s, f5.6, 1600 ISO

The shutter speed on this was slightly faster than the last photo and I bumped the ISO up to 1600.  Because of the faster shutter speed the photo was much darker than some of the previous ones.  It was also getting later in the evening when this photo was taken so the sunlight was starting to fade.