I am struggling to photograph the local birds that visit my backyard feeder. In the Pacific Northwest the thick clouds often reduce the amount of daylight to the point that with my 400mm f/5.6 and ISO 400 film I am shooting at 1/15 second. A single flash unit will stop action but the background is very dark and the image looks like a night shot. So I am thinking of experimenting with two flash units, one to illuminate the bird and the other to illuminate the bushes about 4 feet behind the bird and feeder. I have an N90s, SB26 and SB23 speedlight. I am going to try this out, but if anybody has any tips or tricks I am willing to learn beforehand.

-- Paul DiBiase (paulcanada1@yahoo.com), November 03, 1999

Answers

Paul: I've encountered similar dilemmas when photographing hummers with an EOS 400/5.6 and a single 540EZ flash, using 100-200 iso slide films. Not having the funds to employ additional flash units, I found that a reasonable compromise was to shoot in aperture priority mode with the lens wide open, but with about -2/3rd (or greater) negative exposure comp. (which governs background exposure), and the flash at near full power but using 2nd curtain synch. I then found that in many instances, enough background ambient light was captured to avoid the night-time look, while simultaneously, the brief flash pulse froze the hummers; the contribution of the ambient light to the images of the birds was often difficult to detect, and when it was detectable, the resulting images were often rather interesting, and certainly conveyed a sense of how elusive, fleeting and shy these delicate birds are. By allowing for the slow shutter speed combined with the ultra-brief flash pulse (1/10,000 sec?), the results occasionally yielded a well frozen and well exposed hummer with a faint yet beautiful pattern of delicate wing beats around the birds, rather like a peacock's fan.

-- kurt heintzelman (heintzelman.1@osu.edu), November 04, 1999.

You must think of the shot as kind of a multiple exposure. Flash exposure is controlled by the aperture only. Therefore, use a tripod, and a longer shutter speed to properly expose for the backround. Don't worry, the flash exposure will arrest the motion of the bird. The use of two flashes seems like too much work.

-- Ryan Hathaway (shathaway@woh.rr.com), May 18, 2002.