corw314 Loc: Howell, NJ

I did the search and found topics on hummingbird settings but was looking for settings specific to the canon 80d. Been practicing in manual mode as so far I was shooting in sport. I changed my focus point to one in the middle. Iso 200 and shutter speed is still not fast enough to stop the wings.I know this was dark so what settings should I be using? Any help would be greatly appreciated as these tiny amazing birds are my favorite subject and they have just appeared in New Jersey.

Say Cheese Loc: Eastern PA

Humming birds wings flap around 50 FPS. I would think 1/60th of a second would stop them. Use shutter priority and see what you get. Experiment. The make of camera does not matters. Shutter speed does.

ELNikkor

Since 1 flap covers a lot of space at a high speed, you'd need more like 1/1,000 of a second or more to freeze the wings.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

I agree - test between 1/1000 and 1/4000.

Regarding the "dark" example, use your histogram and adjust the exposure parameters to move the graph to the right. You can open the aperture, lengthen the shutter or up the ISO. Adjust one, two or all three of these parameters to accomplish the brighter exposure while still stopping the wings.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

If you want to freeze the motion of the wings, 1/3200 to 1/4000 depending on how close you are - shorter if closer.

If you want some blur, but not invisible, 1/1600 to 1/2000 is good. Any slower and you'll get a mostly wingless bird. I like a little movement.

1/2000

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1/1600

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Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

You are lucky to catch the bird much less the wings with 1/60th. You may want to try and shoot these tiny, nervous little birds . . .

corw314 Loc: Howell, NJ

These are beautiful. Did you use a tripod?

davidrb Loc: Half way there on the 45th Parallel

Settings can and do change according to conditions surrounding the shoot. The settings you need to use will depend upon sunlight available. Your knowledge of your camera might assist you in getting more speed, i. e., how high can you raise your ISO? Your shutter speed is entirely too slow to capture the bird's wings. Some hummers beat their wings up to 75 times per minute, and shutter speeds in excess of 1/2500 sec are not unheard of. If I do not have the light to support this kind of speed I do not shoot hummers, simple as that. A shot of a hummer that does not show the bird's wing is incomplete (IMO). Shooting hummers requires time, patience, and knowledge. Before you start learn everything possible about the bird. It's habits are important to shooters. The more you know of their habits the more you can benefit. Learning to anticipate birds can be very beneficial.

Say Cheese Loc: Eastern PA

I do not take many pictures of birds so I just used math to make my last post. I was 100% wrong. I went out and tried to take some pictures of Blue birds searching for a home. I took them at 600 th of a second and even that was not fast enough to stop the full motion of their wings. I will stay quiet unless I really can give a good answer.
Always learning..

Retired CPO Loc: Travel full time in an RV

What's wrong with motion in the wings? I like both, motion and freeze. If you don't have enough light for a fast enough shutter speed, use flash, carefully.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

1/1000 is too slow for hummer's wings, 1/2000 is more like it if you want to even come close to freezing the wings. A flash using high speed sync will help if you can get close enough.
This is one shot at 1/2000, in bright late afternoon light and the wings are still a bit blurred around the edges in spite of being right at the pause before the wings reverse to go the other way. 340 mm, f/5.6, ISO 400, 1/2000 with a 7DII, both exposure and focus were center point. An 80D is able to do this (I have one now because of the 27 f/8 focus points vs the 7DII's 1 f/8 focus point.) Range is around 8'.

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GED Loc: North central Pa

You will need 1000th to 2000th of a second depending on how much motion you want to show. I have had good results from 640 to 1250th of a second most of the time. The Ruby throats we have in the east average 60 to 80 wing beats per second and the males can hit 200 wbs during their courtship display. They are amazing creations, to think a little bird that weighs 3oz can fly none stop across the gulf to get to central america an 8 hr trip that's about 2,000,000 wing beats without eating. That's only one part of what may be a 2000 mile journey.

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CaptainEd

How do you set your auto focus for hummers? I've found my 80D constantly picks something in front of the subject unless I use just the center spot.

agillot

if you use a peppy flash for main light , you will freeze the wings , but , back ground will be dark or black .

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

When I shoot Hummingbirds, I set my camera at ISO400-640, f/5.6 or if my lens will do it f/4.0 and keep an eye on my shutter speed. I use aperture priority and adjust my ISO to keep my shutter speed up to at least 1/1600th in bright areas or full sun. If the bird is sitting I can make an adjustment to a lower ISO and maybe a shutter of 1/800th. You have to learn how to change your ISO fast without looking at your camera.

Don't bother shooting birds in shaded areas unless you have a camera mounted flash. Only focus on shooting those that are in full sun. If you find a location that has hummers that isn't in full sun, mount a flash on your camera. You can't completely freeze the wings at 1/200th with flash, but you will get some pretty nice pics with some motion blur on the wings. You may have to bring your ISO up quite a lot if you are shooting in shaded areas. Use a quality flash that has the option of using HSS (High Speed Sync) I was with a friend that bought a cheap flash and it would only flash at the cameras max sync speed and the batteries didn't last very long either.

This one was shot using flash at 1/160th f/8 at ISO 640. f/8 was as open as I could go since I was using a 1.4x teleconverter. This was in the shade and you can see wing blur but it is still a nice picture.

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This one was shot in the sun at 1/2500th, f/4, ISO 640 500mm. Wings stopped nicely

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This one is in the sun at 1/2000th f/4, ISO 640 with slight wing blur. Notice that there is catchlight in the eye and that the throat is lit up nicely.

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This on was in the sun at 1/1600th f/4, ISO 400, 500mm; nice wing detail and low noise.

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