High speed sync

[KeithB]

Triggered short duration flash.

Hummingbirds are not a problem.  It is easy to get a flash that makes daylight look light night (There is an example in the Speedilite book Bob reviewed), so absolute darkness is not required.

Beyond that, as this  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hummingbird) states, the wings beat up to 90 times a second.  So a 1/90th shutter would capture a full beat, a 1/900 second shutter would capture 1/10th of a beat and a 1/5000 shutter would capture about 2% of a beat.

Sunny F/16 says that in full sunlight, your shutter speed is 1/ISO

So, we start at ISO 800, which says that we use a 1/1000 shutter.

From there it is only 2 stops to 1/4000 which is f/8.

It should be easy to stop a hummingbirds wings in full daylight.

[emanresu]

only 90 times /sec?  I could swear one time I read from a photography book saying what an accomplishment it was because the photographer captured the hummingbird beating its wings in a single flap (and no it wasn't a book from the 50's, it was a fairly recent book). 

[Bob Atkins]

Wikipedia says 12-90 beats/sec, depending on the species (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hummingbird).