How to make a fill-in-flash while shooting birds?

My setup is a Canon 300D with 100-400/IS. Usually when shooting

birds, the lens is always at 400mm, with the hood on. From the recent

pictures, I am thinking of using my 420EX as fill-in-flash. If I hand-

hold the camera, the shutter is always faster than 1/400s even when

the IS is on. But when 420EX is used, the max X-sync of 300D is

1/200s. So how will you do with it? I read that somebody just set

420EX at H but I haven't tried it yet.

 

Thanks for the help!

I do this frequently. I set the camera on shutter priority and the exposure will be set

automatically, with the flash providing additional directional light that helps overcome

dark shadows. This works very well. Incidentally, if you want to maximize your flash

battery life and extend the range over which the flash will be effective, you should be

using a flash extender like the Better Beamer. That device reduces the amount of the

flash's light that is wasted by being spread over a much broader angle than covered by a

telephoto lens. And -- unlike most other pieces of equipment needed for bird

photographey -- flash extenders don't cost an arm and a leg.

Don't expect any of the Better Beamer models to be a perfect fit on a 420EX though. Not even close. So it takes a bit of gimmicking to make sure that it's aimed correctly.

 

When it is aimed correctly, it is awesome. It's worth a little aggravation getting it to fit right.

I'm not sure if the 420EX has FEC and the 300D does not either. You'll be relying on the camera's automatic fill-in flash algorithm with no way to override. I've found it to be hit or miss on my 300D. I prefer to dial in an additional -0.7 on my 550EX for fill flash work and have found it to much more effective than the pure automatic mode.

Hi Quingfang,

What you read about setting the 420EX on "H" is true. This is the High Speed FP Sync mode. While in Tv, set your desired shutter speed, the camera will set the exposure and the flash will "burst" to match your shutter speed. (simple explanation!)

The manual that came with the 420EX is kinda vague on this. However, I use an Elan7E of which is probably the best match for the 420EX, (lucky me) and my Elans manual specifically covers instructions for the 420EX, but should work almost as well on your 300D. Max Sync speed on the Elan7E is 1/125th without using the High-Speed FP Sync which can be used on the Elan all the way up to 1/4000th of a sec.

After all, . . . your digital, you see your results almost immediately! Try it!!