Flash practice on the bird feeder

[Jaedon]

So after looking at Canon_Bob's pictures lately and getting more and more envious I decided to try and take a page from his book and start shooting with a flash gun and a Better Beamer. I bought one on his advice almost a year ago but I have never really tried it out. So this morning while the family was sleeping in I decided to sit out on the back porch and shoot before the world woke up.

Here's my first attempt results.

Question for Bob though.... how do you deal with the flash back in the eyes? Is it a post production thing or do you just watch your angles better?

[Loupey]

I'm not C_B but I imagine it's done by using a Stroboframe type bracket to keep the flash as far away from the line-of-sight of the lens as possible. I don't know really - I've never used a flash with birds.

But how much is enough? Trial and error testing with the particular lens you're using?

[paulnj]

Well flash is very tricky and flash as main is even harder! Every scene is different for flash comp and I assure you your images are flash as main light in 1, 4 and 5.

To get rid of the steal eye given off by mammals especially , you need to get the flash as far above the lens as possible.

With a betterbeamer you need far less flash power so start at -2ev and bracket. I find that -1.7 is a good starting point and usually adjust from there .

[Jaedon]

I also just got a pair of wireless triggers for flash use. I am going to try and set the flash closer to the feeder and then go back to where I usually shoot from and see what happened.

Flash was my main light source in all of the above shots. I turned the camera to single shot mode and let'er rip. For this case I set the flash to Max and then adjusted the camera to the amount of light. After all.... it was a practice session. I am learning the flash unit itself as well as lighting techniques at the same time so there's a bit steeper of a learning curve than I expected. But isn't that what this hobby is all about?

[paulnj]

proper flash use is not an easy thing to master. With time and a bunch of trial and error, you will get some great results.