hey Tim; I pretty much use a betterbeamer (actually a kirk flash x-tender; same thing) on almost every bird shot I make. Fill flash for birds really helps fill in shadows, highlight the feathers and give better texture and detail. It also gives you nice catchlights in the eyes.
My normal procedure is to set the camera to manual exposure, dial in an ambient reading for exposure with the aperture I want and use the flash compensation to lower the flash's output. Typically I'll shoot with a -1 to -2.5 flash compensation depending on subject and ambient light. Most of the time I'm using high speed sync so I can have fast shutter speeds when conditions are right. Keep in mind that I use a Canon DSLR but Pentax should have the same sorts of settings. Also, if you are serious about using flash on birds and wildlife in general, get whatever the newest Pentax P-TTL flash is. I went looking for an example of high speed sync with the camera in manual mode and couldn't find one on my only working web gallery... oh well, here is one in aperture priority with a normal shutter speed 1/200: Pyrrhuloxia (Cardinalis sinuatus) http://links.pictures.aol.com/pic/2d202SU7xah202JL7C4tZUZ-gwvVcuOkdY8rv4xQp5Fd3Ig=_l.jpg I think the details speak for themselves in regards to the "flat lighting" argument. Christian Tim Øsleby wrote: > 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. > -- 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.
