Tim, I don't think you can go much wrong with the BetterBeamer. Thanks for the tip... :-) I'm no expert practitioner of fill flash with wildlife. From my modest use I've found the compensation adjustment from the Fn-button back on the K10D to be pretty neat. At least compared to all the messing around I did before.
Your main investment will be a P-TTL enabled flash. Even with the BB, it seems like a good idea to look for as high a guide number as your money can buy. Whether it says Sigma or Pentax probably doesn't matter much re: functionality. I believe you're quite right about what you can expect from this kind of flash use. It will be the little extra in the animal portraits, to bring out the glint in the eye, to lift shadows from sharp to acceptable, that sort of thing. Can also be used in combination with long exposure times to fix a demonic eye-glint in a motion-blurred animal, for example. As for flat light, I'd say that sounds like the usual webforum whine from people with too high-strung expectations and low-wired knowledge. I've produced that sort of images more often than not myself, but I know it's not the equipment's fault. Fill flash just won't save your ass in all light situations. Just in some. Jostein 2008/5/20 Tim Øsleby <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > I'm not very fond of using flash. I nearly never do. But lately I have > tried using some fill from the K20D built in flash, and the results > does not look too bad. At the moment I don't have any other falshes > that are compatible with the K20D. And I tend to beleave I need an > advanced flash for what I want to do. I have also found an old Hama > of camera flash bracket at the bottom of my closet. > > I have read some good things about the Better Beamer used to make fill > flash in birding.http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/better_beamer.shtml > The pictures of that page does nott look very convinsing, but the > article made me think. There might be an triple enablement coming, new > flash and a the BB and something to trigger the flash in the bracket. > > But I have also read some bad things about the BB. Those who are > negative says it makes flat light, and that this destroyes the details > of the feather. That makes sense to me, since the BB makes very direct > light. The bracket might help a bit, but at large distances it is > still very direct. As I understand the trick is to understand the > limitations of the tool, and don't to use the flash as man light > source, more as discrete fill, to make the picture pop. This is what > my experiments with the built in flash tells me. Am I on the right > track here? > > Being a flash novice I really need some help to decide. I beleave > someone here has used some kind of flash extender in birding. Paul > maybe? I would not be surpriced if some of the lsit birders actually > knows something about this. I am also sure somebody who has no idea > could give me some input too :-) Links, babble, or personal wisdom, > your choice ;-) > > I could off cource just by one to try it out myself. But I have no > place to buy it here, so that includes shipping, dealing with VAT and > all that. I don't have much money to waste at the moment. > > -- > MaritimTim > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. > -- http://www.alunfoto.no/galleri/ http://alunfoto.blogspot.com -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
