Hi Larry, Your suggestion would certainly work, but not for birds, which only stay in place for a matter of seconds. No time to aim a flash, via a second party. But an on-camera flash can provide nice light as long as it's fill and the ambient light is the main light. I just have to dial it back some. In the past, I usually struggled to get enough flash, but the high ISO I can use with the K-5 has changed that a bit.
Paul On Dec 12, 2011, at 12:00 PM, Larry Colen wrote: > Paul, > > I don't think that your problem is that you are using flash, but that the > flash is on the camera. Is there any chance that you could pick up an > inexpensive flash extension cord and talk Grace into being a "smart > lightstand"? > > Have her stand with the flash as far from the camera as practical without the > cord pulling it out of your hands, tell her which bird you are trying to > photograph, and have her aim the flash at that bird. > > That'll give you the flash, with more light, and less motion blur, but you > won't get the ugly effects of a flash being dead on center. > > In theory, you could even optically slave the flash she is holding off one on > your camera, either dropping it down -2 stops, or just aiming it to the side > at the flash she is holding. Dumb flashes to use as triggers are pretty > cheap. You just have to remember how to put the af540 ins sl2 mode (the ever > intuitive hold the light button down for 2 seconds). > > > On 12/11/2011 8:39 AM, Paul Stenquist wrote: >> While I agree with Bob that natural light is almost always better than >> flash, it isn't always practical. Here's a comparison of the same bird shot >> with and without flash. Now, if I had better long glass, I might be able to >> pull off more available light wildlife shots, but the A400 is extremely >> prone to color fringing when backlit even by a bright, indirect sky. Here's >> the no-flash shot. Color is nothing special, there is more modeling of the >> shape, but there's also an abundance of fringing. I could PhotoShop the >> fringing out of there but given the overall dullness of the shot, it >> wouldn't be worth the trouble, IMO. >> >> http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=14783692&size=lg >> >> Here's the same bird shot with flash fill. It's not full power. The flash >> comp was set at -1 stop. But -1.5 would have been better. >> >> http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=14780352&size=lg >> >> I'm hoping that Pentax shows up with a DA* 400/4 some time soon. And it's >> less than $1500. >> >> Paul >> >> >> > > -- > Larry Colen [email protected] (from dos4est) > > -- > 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.
