I am very aware of the costs of birding. My VISA card is too. The card has slowed me down for a periode. So I try saying tomyself that I need to reconcider my approach. Positive thinking it's called :-) At the moment I am exploring the posibilities of the DA* 300/4 and 300 x 1,7. With the high ISO performanse of K20D I can handhold this in normal light. l love the freedom this setup gives me. Getting rid of the tripod rig does something with me. I enjoy nature more. It also opens up my photographic eye for new approaches.
Most likely I will go back to the long lens approach for periodes. Both approaches are good, for different tasks. So I need to concider this when deciding the direction of a flash setup. I think I could get away from the rotation problem if I reverse mount the flash bracket, with the flash pointing to the right. The downside is that it then will interfere with my trigger hand. So that's probably not the best idea. Wait a minute. Most of the time when birding I'm using cable release. Hm. Maybe I could glue a cable release onto the bracket. This could also be useful when handholding 300mm. I can see a benefit of putting some distance between my hands. Would probably improve my steadiness. I donno. Thinking, thinking, testing, testing. ... and field testing. BTW. Mirror slap is good and evil. You get one first test shot, and then the reacion. Then it's over :-( I'm not good at imitation of animal sounds. But making some sounds cowering the mirror slap could be a good thing to do. MaritimTim 2008/5/21 Christian <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > 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 > -- 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.
