I was confused as to why a flash was suggested. I did a little research and learned something which should have been obvious to my pea-brain.
I do believe one can stop a hummingbirds wings with just shutter speed, but as you say it will likely require a shutter speed at the extreme upper end of the range. A flash unit emits light for fractions of time that are usually of much shorter duration than the shutter spped, meaning the exposure duration is effectively the duration of the flash, not the shutter speed. All this adds up to it's easier to 'stop' fast action by hitting it with a fast burst of light than it is by trying to control how long ambient light leaks through the (relatively slow) open shutter. Tom C. "I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered." >From: "Butch Black" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Reply-To: Pentax-Discuss Mail List <[email protected]> >To: "Pentax discussion group" <[email protected]> >Subject: Re: Hummingbird help >Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2006 19:58:56 -0400 > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Tom C" >Subject: RE: Hummingbird help > > > > I don't quite understand why a flash is viewed as needed when their > > wings typically beat < 100 times per second. It would seem that > > shutter > > speed alone would capture it (though I've shot at 1/250 before and > > have > > still seen motion blur in the wings). > > >I'm no scientist or mathematician but you figure even the smallest >hummingbird has at least 2" movement at the tip of his wings, so each beat >is moving 4" (2" down,2"up) X 100 times a second, that's a lot of movement. >So it does not surprise me that the average SLR shutter speed (1/4000 or >less) will not freeze the motion. As others have mentioned electronic flash >duration can be significantly shorter then that. When I took my camera to >baseball games 1/1000 second was not fast enough to freeze a fast ball, it >was only when I got the Z-1p and was able to shoot 1/4000 - 1/8000 was I >able to freeze the ball and I think a hummingbird's wings move faster then >a >baseball. > >For what it's worth > >Butch > > > >-- >PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List >[email protected] >http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
