Tim Øsleby wrote: > Thank you for your input and the quick tutorial. My pleasure. > > One more thing while I have you here Christian. Or two actually :-) > > Do you think my on camera Hama flashbracket (raises flash about two > inches above, and swings it out about seven inches) will do, or do I > need to look for a solution that mounts the flash at the gimbal mount > (Manfrotto 393). Flash brackets for the Manfrotto mount are impossible > to find, so I've got to make one myself if needed.
The honest answer is, how is the current setup working for you? My set up, remember, costs thousands of dollars which I'm willing to pay because I enjoy using it and could afford it. Before I had the 500mm, gimbal mount and flash bracket, I used the flash directly on the shoe with a 300mm lens. The one thing that drove me crazy more than anything else was taking a vertical shot. It would put the flash awkwardly on the left and unbalance the rig as well as get in the way and most likely become less effective. Having the lens and camera bracket mounted to the gimbal mount allows the camera to be rotated to the vertical position easily and quickly. The height of the flash above the lens does matter (for eliminating weird red or green eyes) but to me it was more a matter of getting away from the awkwardness of making portrait compositions. The first flash brackets I made from aluminum strips were for hand-held macro shots; the so called "butterfly bracket." One other thing I made sure to do was invest in a quick release system (Arca Swiss) that is more "universal" i.e. lots of accessories are made to fit it like flash brackets, etc. But I've also gone past the "casual" wildlife shooter with my obsession. Have you? :-) > > I've also been thinking on how the birds react on the flash. I've > heard that most birds don't seem to care. What about shy and > threatened birds, is that a no no, generally speaking. There has been lots of debate about this on naturescapes.net. Most of the bird shooters either believe or have chosen to believe that the birds don't care. I've never seen a reaction to the flash; only reaction to the shutter/mirror-slap sound. The LX was good at getting birds to look at me. One shot to get their attention, the next for a nice portrait. I wouldn't blast an owl at night with flash, just out of respect! Christian > > MaritimTim > > 2008/5/20 Christian <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: >> 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. >> > > > -- 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.
