| After a long weekend at the Mandarin Art Festival in Jacksonville, I really looked forward to my visit to St. Augustine (just about an hour south on I-95) for a morning of shooting at the famed Alligator Farm. I've talked about this place before: the birds find it to be fantastic for nest-building and chick-rearing because the alligators keep the waters safe of swimming predators like snakes and raccoons that feast on eggs. It's a bird photographer's paradise, because the boardwalk--new and improved this year--enables you to get up close to the action. And today, it gives me a chance to talk a little bit about using flash outdoors to fill in shadows and/or add light on to the camera side of your subject when the main light (the sun) is behind the subject. There's a lot of confusion on how to manage flash properly. I'll cover this extensively in a workshop next fall, but let's use this example to get started. Another egret startled this Snowy as I was photographing him/her from the new boardwalk, giving me a nice look at the bird's backlit breeding plumage. My Canon 580EX flash was used as flash fill. I calculated a basic exposure of 1/1600 @ f/8 (at ISO 400), using the old "sunny f/16" formula. (This formula has been around for decades, because it works!) On a bright sunny day, set an exposure as follows:
Because I shoot birds in action with long lenses, I want as fast a shutter speed as I can get. So I amend the "formula" to 1/1600 at f/8. Do the math, and you'll see that's the same exposure. This setting gives me proper exposure for the Snowy's white backlit feathers, but would underexpose the camera-side of the subject by about two stops. I'll use flash for fill light, as described below. The trick with using flash as fill light (with or without a Better Beamer) is use it subtly, to keep it from overpowering the ambient light. That means you'll add LESS of it. So calculate your camera's exposure settings (ISO, shutter speed, f/stop) as if you weren't using flash. Then, using the flash's exposure settings, dial in an appropriate amount of "minus" exposure compensation. Additional comment: The settings described above also require your flash to be able to synchronize with your shutter at high shutter speeds (Canon calls it "high-speed synch.") If your flash doesn't have this feature, calculate your basic exposure using your camera's maximum synch speed (usually 1/250 sec), then add flash as described above. (if you're synching at 1 / 250 sec, you will probably want to dial in the lowest possible ISO, thereby enabling as wide a lens aperture as you can get. This keeps the background in softer focus) More flash-outdoors tips later this week...and an explanation of how the Better Beamer works, and why it's the best bargain in the wildlife photographer's bag. | |
