Our Mission and Values at GBT...
Here at GBT we hope to foster an interest in all things birding, and in so doing, also create a deep and abiding respect for our natural environment. We do so without taking ourselves too serioulsy, but we do take the state of our environment very seriously. We share our knowledge and our passion for all things birding willingly and enthusiastically.
I can only speak for my experience and the equipment i have.
I use a Canon Speedlite 550EX, and after a very cloudy and rainy December i was forced to start using it more. Now you will seldom find me traveling without it. Only on bright clear days to i take it.
The speedlight is very easy to use. If you set it to ETTL the flash will pretty much do all your settings. TTL stands for Through The Lens, and thus follows the settings that your camera picks up from the lens. ETTL just indicates that is is digital. Most of our cameras have a TTL sensor that measures the light reflected off the sensor and adjusts the flash accordingly.
TTL will adjust the exposure to what the camera settings is and also adjust the zoom. Even if you use a AV program it will set the exposure in accordance to the shutter speed of the camera. It will also automatically adjust to your ISO setting
AS most of the photos we take are at the maximum focal length of our camera most of the light is dispersed at that range to provide soft fill in light. TTL flash is very useful in very dull light or in the shadows of a forest.
If you want to use the flash as a fill flash to reduce shadows in harsh light, reduce strong back light, or give extra light in partly cloudy conditions or woodland take an average measurement of the camera settings and manually reduce the exposure by 1-2 stops. For black birds this you can reduce another stop.
The last flash method that I have used is high speed flash. this in indicated on the Speedlights by the lightning sign and a H. This allows the flash to fire at a higher speed especially with multiple shots. This is handy for BIF shots, but one need to be aware that the first flash will be a full flash and the ones there after at about 50% as they are too quick for the flash to fully charge up again.
Here are a few samples of what i have achieved with flash:
Robin White-starred-1 by roelofvdb, on Flickr The Robin was in a very dark patch of the forest. Without a flash I would not even have had a shot.
Puffback Black-backed-2 by roelofvdb, on Flickr The Puffback was taken on a rare and very misty morning in Satara. He was well within the bush, but using fill flash i managed to get him lighted quite well. without the flash i would not have been able to get that catchlight in his eye, that livens up the photo.
Robin-chat Chorister-2_cr by roelofvdb, on Flickr The Chorister was taken on a very bright day and the road was on quite a steep slope causing strong back light through the forest. In this case I used high speed as the bird never sat for more than a few seconds, using bursts of up the 3-4 shots at a time. This was the second shot of a burst thus the flash was at half power
“You must be the change you wish to see in the world”. Mahatma Gandhi
Treat the Earth and all that dwell therein with respect.Remain close to the Great Spirit Show great respect for your fellow beings. Work together for the benefit of all Mankind Give assistance and kindness wherever needed. Do what you know to be right Look after the well-being of Mind and Body. Dedicate a share of your efforts to the greater Good Be truthful and honest at all times. Take full responsibility for your actions. American Indian Ten Commandments
Some practical input on the flash theme – I have a Canon 430EX Speedlite and use it on a 40D and Canon EFS lenses so this is valid for this set up but most of the Canon DSLR cameras will work the same. The handbook that comes with the flash is pretty basic and not very helpful.
There are a few flash related settings in the Canon “extended function menu” C.Fn that makes big difference to the way the camera and flash interact. Most of my flash disasters stem from using the flash on AV settings which tends to be hit and miss process of matching the shutter and flash ouput duration.
If you use the Menu to navigate to the C.Fn – Exposure setting one of them is an option to “Flash sync. Speed in AV mode” options are Auto and 1/250 (fixed). Default is Auto change this to Fixed. If you select this then the camera/flash syncs to 1/250 in AV mode when a external flash is connected and you get a perfect exposure every time and a very usable 1/250 - try it. I do know that Nikon has an equivalent setting.
Another feature poorly used is the zoom function on these flashes. The zoom as it says physically moves the flash tube forward or back in the housing and this effects the spread and range of the flash. In manual mode it is possible with a bit of practice to light up a very small area with the flash and keep the surroundings dark which makes for great visual effects. Start with settings that gives you a good flash photo - switch to manual duplicate the shot settings and play with the zoom settings for hours of fun !
One other area to experiment with is using the flash to take the shot not the camera. Set up the camera on a tripod in "M" mode use the infinity focus setting on your lens and shutter on "Bulb" using a hand held remote function (In the dark of course !) Get somebody to run or walk past the lens and then pop the manual test button on the flash (yes while the shutter is open) - you can play for hours with this. Maybe hubby on the expensive bike he has for some speed shots in his underpants ?
Nothing to do with flash but another great toy is the “long exposure noise reduction setting “ also in the Functions part of the menu. This is great for star shots of just plain low light ‘photography. In simple terms the camera take two shots one with the shutter open (stars trails +- 8- 10 Mins) and the one with the shutter closed, this is what catches most people because nothing will happen on the camera until its finished its own internal ‘photo – it then takes the noise elements and cancels the out . Unless you know that for a 10 min shot you have to wait 20 mins for a picture it can get pretty confusing.
This will give you something to do on those cold winter nights.
Best and cheapest Flash accessory is one of those tupperware flash diffusers, check out the kitchen cupboard first and then the plastic shop.
Lekker Speel !
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge" Charles Darwin http://www.andna.co.za/
“You must be the change you wish to see in the world”. Mahatma Gandhi
Treat the Earth and all that dwell therein with respect.Remain close to the Great Spirit Show great respect for your fellow beings. Work together for the benefit of all Mankind Give assistance and kindness wherever needed. Do what you know to be right Look after the well-being of Mind and Body. Dedicate a share of your efforts to the greater Good Be truthful and honest at all times. Take full responsibility for your actions. American Indian Ten Commandments
Thanks RK, I'll certainly try out the noise reduction setting as i have a few botched attempts of star shoots before.
The one thing that i miss on these cameras is a multishot function. My Canon Powershot has a functions where you can set it to take a number of photos automatically in a row I.e 15 shots with 2 seconds between shots. If you then set it at something like 15s exposure and setup the camera towards an advancing storm you can get some great lightning shots. With a trigger release you can manually do this on the SLRs. You simply keep the lens open until a lightning strike occurred.
As a reference to anyone interested in playing with star shots using noise reduction I offer the details of this shot taken in the Kalahari. The detail is in the EXIF but I will repeat it here.
Lens F2.8 14mm wide angle. Camera in Manual Mode, noise reduction On, a good solid tripod, ISO 200, Exposure "bulb" exposure time is 12 Minutes 48 seconds so the total "time to picture" on the LCD was 25 Mins , If you can take the cold you can get more "swirls"
I am sure you know how to find the stellar poles, the fore ground was illuminated with a hand held (LED) torch for effect. Credit for teaching me this method goes to my son Nicholas. Enjoy experimenting
“You must be the change you wish to see in the world”. Mahatma Gandhi
Treat the Earth and all that dwell therein with respect.Remain close to the Great Spirit Show great respect for your fellow beings. Work together for the benefit of all Mankind Give assistance and kindness wherever needed. Do what you know to be right Look after the well-being of Mind and Body. Dedicate a share of your efforts to the greater Good Be truthful and honest at all times. Take full responsibility for your actions. American Indian Ten Commandments
Great info Imax and RK! Thank you for sharing this with us. I need to use my flash a lot more than what I currently do. Wonderful shot BK! Love the lit up foreground. Very nice.
.gif "Africa Birds and Birding Magazine")
?
