How to Photograph Hummingbirds in Costa Rica: Tips and Settings

The easiest way to photograph hummingbirds in Costa Rica is at a feeder garden, where dozens of birds come and go all day within a few feet of your lens. The best-known spots are the Hummingbird Gallery in Monteverde, La Paz Waterfall Gardens near Poás, the Colibrí café at Cinchona, Rancho Naturalista near Turrialba and the gardens of San Gerardo de Dota. For a sharp body with blurred wings, start at 1/250 to 1/500 second with continuous autofocus and a fast burst. To freeze the wings, use one or more flashes at low power, since the short flash burst, not the shutter speed, stops the motion. A 100–400mm lens, a tripod and plenty of memory cards cover most situations.

This guide is for travelers with a camera who want hummingbird shots worth keeping. It covers where to go, what to bring, the camera and flash settings that work in Costa Rica’s dim cloud forests, and the mistakes that cost people the shot.

Hummingbird photography	At a glance
Species in Costa Rica	54 on the official list; 2 found nowhere else
Best places	Monteverde, La Paz Waterfall Gardens, Cinchona, Rancho Naturalista, San Gerardo de Dota
Best time of day	Morning, when feeders are full and birds are busiest
Lens	100–400mm or similar; 70–200mm works at close feeders
Natural-light start	1/250–1/500 sec, f/5.6–f/8, Auto ISO, continuous AF, fastest burst
Flash start	Manual flash at 1/16 power or lower, 1/250 sec, f/8–f/16, ISO 100–400
Bring	Tripod, spare batteries and cards, rain cover

Why here

Why Costa Rica Is Good for Hummingbird Photography

Costa Rica has 54 hummingbird species on its official list, out of roughly 950 bird species in the country. Two of them, the coppery-headed emerald and the mangrove hummingbird, live only in Costa Rica. Species change with elevation, so a trip that covers the Caribbean foothills, the cloud forest and the high Talamanca mountains can add up to a long list.

The bigger advantage is access. Many lodges, cafés and nature parks keep hummingbird feeders and flower gardens stocked all day, so you don’t have to search the forest for a bird that moves faster than you can follow. You set up near a feeder and let the birds come to you. That’s the best way to learn, and experienced photographers use it too.

It helps to know a little about the birds before you go. Hummingbirds beat their wings from about 12 times per second in the largest species to 80 or more in small ones, which is why fast shutter speeds alone rarely freeze them. They feed in short bursts, often return to the same perch between visits, and defend feeders aggressively. The violet sabrewing, a large purple species common in Monteverde, chases smaller birds off. Watch for a few minutes and you’ll see the patterns you can plan your shots around.

Where to go

Best Places to Photograph Hummingbirds in Costa Rica

Monteverde

The Hummingbird Gallery sits just outside the entrance to the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve. Watching the feeders is free; the gift shop and café are optional. About 20 species turn up, including the violet sabrewing, purple-throated mountain-gem, green-crowned brilliant and coppery-headed emerald. Birds often rest on branches around the feeders, which gives you perched shots as well as flight shots.

Expect mist, wind and low light, so plan on higher ISO or flash. Many Monteverde hotels also keep feeders. See our Monteverde guide and our picks for the best hotels in Monteverde. The cloud forest is also one of the places to look for the resplendent quetzal.

La Paz Waterfall Gardens and Peace Lodge

La Paz Waterfall Gardens is a private nature park in Vara Blanca, on the slopes between Poás Volcano and Braulio Carrillo National Park, about an hour from San José. Its hummingbird garden draws about two dozen species, and the birds are used to people, often feeding within inches of visitors. That makes it one of the easiest places in the country for close-up shots with a shorter lens. The feeders often run low by late afternoon, so come in the morning.

Peace Lodge, the park’s hotel, is the option if you want more than one session at the feeders. The park also works as a day trip from San José; see our day tours from San José and, for the falls themselves, our guide to photographing waterfalls in Costa Rica.

Cinchona (Colibrí Café)

A little farther along the same mountain road toward Sarapiquí, the Colibrí Café, also called Soda y Mirador Cinchona, has a covered balcony with feeders at eye level and a view across a valley to a waterfall. A soda is a small, casual Costa Rican restaurant, so order coffee or a meal while you shoot. Hummingbirds here include the green-crowned brilliant, green thorntail, coppery-headed emerald and violet-ears, along with tanagers, barbets and emerald toucanets at the fruit feeders. The roof makes it a good choice on rainy days.

Rancho Naturalista

This birding lodge and private reserve sits on the Caribbean foothills of Turrialba Volcano. Its gardens are known for the snowcap, a tiny dark-purple hummingbird with a white crown, and more than 400 bird species have been recorded around the lodge. Feeders are visible from the terrace, and in the afternoons hummingbirds come down to bathe in small forest pools, which gives you a different kind of shot. You can walk the trails on your own or hire a guide.

San Gerardo de Dota

This high valley in the Talamanca Mountains has species you won’t see at lower elevations, such as the fiery-throated, volcano and Talamanca hummingbirds and the white-throated mountain-gem. Batsu Gardens, a garden set up for bird photographers, is the best-known spot. Mornings are cold, and San Gerardo is also a top area for quetzals from about February to April.

Also worth a look

• Arenal Observatory Lodge: its verbena gardens attract the black-crested coquette, a tiny hummingbird with a spiky crest.
• Carara National Park and the Tárcoles River area: the place to look for the mangrove hummingbird, one of Costa Rica’s two endemics.
• Hotel gardens: many lodges plant flowering shrubs that hummingbirds visit. Wild flowers make more natural photos than plastic feeders.

For more on where and when to look for birds, see our bird watching guide and our guide to the best time to visit Costa Rica by region.

Gear

What Gear You Need to Photograph Hummingbirds

• A camera with fast burst and good continuous autofocus. Recent mirrorless cameras with bird-eye detection make this much easier, but any DSLR or mirrorless body with a fast frame rate works.
• A telephoto lens. A 100–400mm or 150–600mm zoom suits most feeders. At places where birds come within a few feet, such as La Paz, a 70–200mm is enough. Check your lens’s minimum focus distance; at close feeders it matters more than focal length.
• A tripod. It lets you pre-focus on a feeder and wait without holding a heavy lens up for an hour. Travel tripods from brands such as MeFoto. fold small enough for a carry-on.
• One or more flashes if you want to freeze wings. Manual flashes such as the Yongnuo cost far less than camera-brand models. Add wireless triggers and small light stands for off-camera setups.
• Plenty of fast memory cards. Burst shooting fills cards quickly, and RAW files take a lot of space.
• Spare batteries, a rain cover and a dry bag. Cloud forests are wet, and humidity fogs lenses when you move from an air-conditioned room outside.
• Binoculars for spotting perches before you commit to a setup. See our compact binoculars guide.

For a full packing list, see what camera gear to bring to Costa Rica.

Settings

Best Camera Settings for Hummingbirds

Decide first what look you want. A sharp body with blurred wings shows motion and is easy in natural light. Fully frozen wings need flash. Neither is “correct.”

Setting	Natural light	Flash
Mode	Manual with Auto ISO, or shutter priority	Manual
Shutter speed	1/250–1/500 sec for wing blur; 1/2000 sec or faster to reduce it	1/250 sec or your camera’s flash sync speed
Aperture	f/5.6–f/8	f/8–f/16
ISO	Auto; 800–3200 is common in forest shade	100–400, so daylight barely registers
Flash power	None	1/16 or lower, in manual mode
Focus	Continuous AF, single point or small zone	Manual or AF pre-set on the feeder
Drive	Fastest burst; pre-capture if available	Single frames as flashes recycle
File format	RAW	RAW

Natural light

• Shutter speed: 1/250 second freezes the body and leaves the wings blurred. Even 1/8000 second may not fully freeze the wings of small species.
• Aperture: f/5.6 to f/8 keeps the whole bird sharp. If the background isn’t soft enough, open up or pick an angle with the background farther away.
• Exposure: dial in about -1/3 to -2/3 stop of exposure compensation. Iridescent throat feathers flare easily, and shadows are easier to recover from RAW than blown highlights.
• Pre-capture: if your camera has a pre-capture (pre-release) burst mode, use it. It saves frames from just before you fully press the shutter.

Focus and composition

Pre-focus on the feeder port or a favorite flower, then wait. Hovering birds usually stay a few inches from where they feed. Place the feeder at the edge of the frame, in the lower left corner if the bird feeds from the right side, so the bird fills the frame and the feeder barely shows. Better still, shoot at a flower near the feeder, or at a perch the birds return to, for a more natural photo.

Flash

How to Freeze Hummingbird Wings With Flash

A flash at low power fires for a tiny fraction of a second, far shorter than any shutter speed. If the flash is your only real light source, that brief burst is what freezes the wings.

1. Kill the daylight. Set 1/250 second (or your sync speed), f/8 to f/16 and ISO 100 to 400. Take a test frame without flash; it should be nearly black. Otherwise, ambient light leaves ghosted wings.
2. Set flashes to manual, 1/16 power or lower. Lower power means a shorter flash and sharper wings, so move the flashes closer rather than turning them up.
3. Light the bird from two or three angles, aiming at the spot in front of the feeder where birds hover.
4. Light the background. Without a lit backdrop, the background goes black. A flash on nearby foliage or a printed green backdrop gives a natural look.
5. Pre-focus and trigger. Use a tripod and a remote release so you can watch the bird rather than the viewfinder.
6. Use the mechanical shutter. Many cameras can’t sync a flash with the electronic shutter, and fast wings can bend in electronic-shutter frames.

Shoot early in the morning or on overcast days, when daylight is easiest to overpower. Flashes need time to recharge, so you’ll get single frames rather than long bursts.

Avoid

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Chasing birds through the forest instead of waiting at a feeder or flower.
• Expecting a fast shutter speed to freeze the wings. In natural light, you’ll get some blur.
• Turning flash power up instead of moving the flash closer.
• Arriving in the late afternoon, when some feeders are nearly empty.
• Forgetting the background. A busy background spoils a sharp bird.
• Running out of cards or batteries an hour into a good session.

For more photography ideas, see our guides to macro photography in Costa Rica, photographing volcanoes and better beach pictures.

FAQ

Photographing Hummingbirds in Costa Rica: FAQ