People often ask why I stopped shooting hummingbirds in flight about a decade ago. After twenty years of chasing them with modified Hasselblads, manual focus, and custom-wired high-speed flashes, the answer usually surprises them: It got too easy.
A few years ago, I took delivery of a Sony A7RV and a 400mm f2.8 lens. I walked into the garden, saw a hummingbird hovering near a flower, and raised the camera. In about ten seconds, I had a pin-sharp image with the focus locked perfectly on the eye and a creamy, soft green background.
The camera’s AI-driven autofocus did in milliseconds what used to take me weeks of technical calibration and a high degree of manual dexterity to achieve. The “hunt” was gone.
The Era of "In-Camera" Discipline
The images you see in my hummingbird galleries come from a different era. From the late 90s through the mid-2010s, capturing a hummingbird in flight—especially two birds interacting—was a feat of engineering and reflex.
Manual Everything: Autofocus simply couldn’t track a bird moving, diving, and hovering in a window of time that lasted less than half a second. Every shot here was focused by hand.
Sculpting with Light: Those black and white backgrounds aren’t “fake.” They are the result of precise flash placement.
The Black Background: Created by an absence of light. By flagging my flashes, I ensured they hit only the bird and not the garden wall behind it.
The White Background: Created by “blowing out” a cream-colored stucco wall with dedicated background flashes. As any old-school pro knows, you can make anything white if you have enough flash power.
The “Wild” Constraint: These were never captive birds. They were free, wild, and unpredictable visitors to my home in Southern California.
Why It Matters
In this section of the site, I’ll be diving deeper into the specific high-speed techniques I used, the transition from film to the early Canon digital systems (and my research into their sensors), and the DIY rigs that made these images possible.
I believe there is a value in the struggle of the capture. When the technology disappears and it’s just you, the light, and a bird moving at 50 wingbeats per second, the resulting image feels less like a “capture” and more like a hard-won trophy.
I’d love to hear your thoughts—does the ease of modern gear take the “soul” out of the process for you, or is it just another tool in the box?
