Medium format camera
120mm macro lens
Short extension tube
Beam tripper
High speed photography
SETUP:
The close up of the high speed photo of a hummingbird beak required two medium sized soft lights were used. A laser trigger was aligned across the inner throat of the iris so when the hummingbird came in to drink nectar her beak would break the beam. A delay module was used to delay the trigger signal long enough for the bird to finish inserting her beak before an electronic cable release tripped the shutter. After everything is setup there's nothing to do but go and sit in a lawn chair until your strobes go off and then its time to re-cock the shutter and take another break.
The exposure was 1/500 sec. at F22 with electronic flash. The ambient exposure would have been 1/8 sec. at F22 which put the ambient light 6 stops down from the flash exposure. This is one of those times where it really is nice having a flash sync speed of 1/500 sec. as the ambient light had no effect on the image.
