Flash for Freezing Bird in flight

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Chubster

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Adrian
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Posted this in nature but thought I might get some more advice here...

I have set a perch up in the garden and slowly the birds are getting used to it, camera is on a tripod and using a remote trigger.

Cant get the fast shutter speed required in natural light so I plan to use a flash to "freeze" the wings as it comes in to land / takeoff.

So, I have Yongnuo flash and two Lencarta Elite Pro 300 heads, which would you use and any suggested settings?

Cheers

Chub
 
For ease of use I'd go with the flashgun at its lowest power to harness the fastest flash duration. Placed just out of shot it *should* freeze things but if the ambient light is too much, it may not be the dominant light source at a low power setting.

Not sure about flash durations on studio heads - GarryEdwards should be able to tell you more, what with his knowledge of Lencarta stuff. The obvious problems with studio flash outdoors is the weather....

Either way, just watch your maximum sync speed....
 
Chubster said:
Posted this in nature but thought I might get some more advice here...

I have set a perch up in the garden and slowly the birds are getting used to it, camera is on a tripod and using a remote trigger.

Cant get the fast shutter speed required in natural light so I plan to use a flash to "freeze" the wings as it comes in to land / takeoff.

So, I have Yongnuo flash and two Lencarta Elite Pro 300 heads, which would you use and any suggested settings?

Cheers

Chub
Click to expand...

Lencarta will be too slow. Use the Yongnuo on 1/8th power or less. It will need to be quite close.

Background will likely go dark. To fix that you would need to light the background separately, probably with a fake background.
 
Cheers Richard....will give that a go. I am correct in saying that my shutter speed doesn't really matter as long as I am under my sync speed ?
 
Chubster said:
Cheers Richard....will give that a go. I am correct in saying that my shutter speed doesn't really matter as long as I am under my sync speed ?
Click to expand...

Yes. But it's not quite as straightforward as that.

You need to use the highest x-sync speed possible, to minimise ghosting from the ambient light, and that's what will make the background go dark. And hence the experts would also light the background with flash.

That's difficult, but you might get a nice result by letting some background light in and accepting a bit of ghosting and blur. Suck it and see.
 
Chubster said:
Posted this in nature but thought I might get some more advice here...
Click to expand...

You have just made life more confusing for others now having to look at two threads to read what others are advising Adrian ;)
 
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