Should I get a flash for bird photos?

<p>I haven't even bought a telephoto lens yet, but I am interested if it will <em>really</em> make "better" photos. I sure dont want to spend $200 just for nothing. Would one work good, or would two flashes be significantly better. I can not afford two. Also, what mode should I use. Thanks!</p>

<p>P.S. I will be using a 300mm 5.8 lens : )<br>

P.P.S. I have no idea what species I will photograph. : (</p>

<p>i'm sure there's a perfectly good reason to use a flash for bird photos, but right off the top of my head i can't think of one. is it to see the light in their eyes? i find that when i'm in the right place, with the sun behind me, a flash wouldn't help the shot. and if you're talking 300mm on a copy body, you'd be far enough away that you'd need a powerful flash to generate any kind of illumination of the subject. perhaps you can simply work with your zoom first, and once you get the hang of that, any additional equipment needs will be more obvious.</p>

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<p>"Should I get a flash for bird photos?"</p>

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<p>The short answer is, it depends. The longer answer requires much more information like camera, lens choice, subject distance, aperture, shutter speed, ISO, etc.</p>

<p>For example, are the birds sitting in trees or flying around? Most likely, flash won't help with flying birds because their distance is greater than the reach of the flash, though sometimes a better beamer will help with flying birds. Flash might help for some birds that aren't moving and are within the flash distance, sometimes just as fill flash.</p>

<p>I would get the lens first and get used to it. It won't take long to understand its limitations. Then you will know better if a flash might help you.</p>

 

<p>Agreed with what has been noted here. Flash certainly has its uses for bird photography, if you get one depending on the focal length you will need a device to concentrate the light.</p>

<p>I would personally recommend picking up a book on bird photography first though. It isn't an easy undertaking but sure feels sweet when you get a great image.</p>

<p>Yes, a flash is absolutely essential for bird photography in my opinion. Your pictures will take a huge leap forward in quality once you start using one, with a proper exteneder on it like a Better Beamer. That applies to pretty much any species, in any condition and in any setting. In any burst I fire where the flash can't quite recycle quickly enough the frames where the flash fired are always by far the best as far as rendering of colour, taming of contrast, freezing of motion, catchlight in the eye, etc. For what it's worth I'm mainly referring to shooting songbirds, but as I said earlier this applies to any situation including birds in flight. You'll be amazed at how much reach a Better Beamer will give you. If you find a situation where the flash isn't helping at all you can always turn it off.<br>

The downside is that it takes a lot of practice to learn to set your flash to give you natural looking results. In addition to making exposure compensation adjustments on camera for varying conditions/subjects/light you'll also frequently have to make additional exposure compensation adjustments to your flash unit as well to keep it balanced with the ambient light for natural looking results. E-TTL won't do all the work for you. Knowing how much, and in which direction and being able to do it very quickly takes practice. Lots and lots of practice. Oh, and lots of practice too. You don't want shots of birds that look like they're being lit by a nuclear blast. That's worse than no flash at all.<br>

Also $200 seems a little cheap for a good flash, but maybe not since I don't know the specs of which one you're looking at. A powerful flash with a fast recycle time will be your friend, and even still you'd want to strongly consider adding an external battery pack to it for lasting power and much faster recycle times. Canon has one for their flash system, not sure about other manufacturers. If you mount your flash off camera then you'll also have the expense of an off-shoe cord and a flash bracket. So after adding up the costs of a good flash, a flash bracket, an off-shoe camera cord, an external battery pack, a couple of sets of rechargeable batteries and a battery charger you're not talking about an insignificant amount of money. But the results are absolutely worth it.</p>

<p>Like Bruce said though, get your long lens first and get proficient at using it. It's difficult enough to quickly find small birds with a long lens, and use proper technique to avoid lens shake and make pleasing compositions all at the same time. There's no substitute for a lot of practice. Once you've mastered that, then go ahead and add a flash and take your pictures to the next level.</p>

<p>I hate flash for birds shot...They are always to far (even with the better beamer) or...I find that a lot of them have cataracts...It gives the eyes a whitish ugly color when you are close enough...</p>

<p>I tend to mount a flash unit just in case, and then use it only when absolutely necessary. I much prefer natural light, but for certain dim lighting conditions and active subjects a flash is sometimes the only viable means. -g-</p>

<p>I sometimes use flash for bird photography, but one can obviously obtain quality bird images without one. The trick is to not make it obvious by lowering the output so as only to a) lighten up shadows a bit, b) add some sparkle to iridiscent feathers, if any, and, most crucially, c) to add a catchlight to the eyes. A pitch black bird's eye literally looks dead and while the sun might be the ideal catchlight, it won't be available in a back-lit subject.</p>

<p>Another thing to keep in mind is that while birds do not have cataracts (like someone mentioned) nocturnal bird species, in particular, have the same kind of reflective layer behind its retina as, e.g., cats and humans. And to avoid this 'red-eye' problem, the flash needs to be moved away from the lens by placing it on a bracket.</p>

<p>Good luck - have fun!</p>

Well it does help, but my flash wasn't $200...it was $400! (Canon 580EX 2)

<p>Better Beamer claims a 3 stop increase in focused flash distance. You should be able to use the guide number from your flash along with some fancy Inverse Square Law arithmatic to come up with an effective distance number. I think I'm going to order one to experiment with, they're quite inexpensive.</p>

<p>Most flash will not illuminate very well beyond 100'.<br>

I have used flash for bird photography but only when they are less than ~50' away.</p>

<p>Well, I'll take a stab at it. The 580EXII has a guide number of 138' at the 50mm zoom setting. I'll assume that rating was achieved using ISO 100. The Better Beamer is also suggested to be used with the flash zoomed to 50mm.</p>

<p>I generally shoot at ISO 800 when doing bird photography, so that guide number would then translate into 380' at ISO 800 (3 stops=138'x1.4x1.4x1.4). I also generally stay around f/8, so the effective range of the flash would then be 48' at ISO 800 at f/8. However, that's at full power. I only use my flash as fill. So if I dial the flash down 1 stop, the effective flash range would then become 67' (48x1.4). If I dial down 2 stops the effective range would then become 94'. That's without the flash extender.</p>

<p>Using the last example of an effective range of 94' at ISO800 at f/8 with -2 stops compensation applied to the flash, and then adding a Better Beamer which claims at least a 2 stop improvement, that 94' figure would then double to an effective 188' range. -2 stops is pretty weak though, so the effective range would be a bit less but maybe not since the Better Beamer actually claims an improvement of 2-3 stops. But I can easily see the results in pictures shooting a bird well over 100' away, so even if my math isn't 100% accurate, it's in the ballpark.</p>

<p>With 188' of reach, even flying birds are in range of your flash, especially when flying directly overhead.</p>

<p>Unfortunately at great distances red-eye and steel-eye are almost guaranteed as even placing the flash on a bracket well away from the lens axis doesn't create enough of an angle to avoid it at those distances. Fortunately, at those distances most bird shots aren't really worth taking anyway unless you enjoy pictures of teeny-tiny little birds comprising a small fraction of your frame. (Again, referring to small songbirds, not larger birds like herons and such). At distances of roughly 50' or less, I never have a problem with red-eye or steel-eye on birds. Not even geriatric birds with cataracts, heh.</p>

<p>That 2nd last sentence could have been clearer. What I tried to say was that at distances of roughly 12'-50' I never have a problem with red-eye or steel-eye. Unfortunately I didn't catch it before my 10 minute edit window closed.</p>

<p>I do birds a lot and i think ive tried flash once. BUT. I've seen some really fantastic uses of flash in bird and wildlife photography. Mostly to enhance color or cut shadows. I'd get the best lens you can possibly buy rather than worry about a flash. A great monopod/tripod will help more than flash. Even more important is the gas to get where you need to go to photograph the birds!</p>

<p>How about birds in overhead flight photos when the bird is usually in its own shadow and overexposing for the bottom part usually renders the sky too light and still doesnt provide nice detail of the bottom feathers (even with postprocessing)?<br>

Could flash with an extender be practical in such conditions? Normal flash sync at 1/250 or FP sync?<br>

I am too thinking about this option, since I do a lot of BIF and all the time overexpose a bit and do the postprocessing to get at least some detail. Of course in no way it can compare to a situation when the sun (even in indirect way) lightens the feathers, like happens when the bird is at a better angle with the sun.<br>

Good lens doesn't help if there is no good lightning in this case.<br>

What is your experience with flash/extender and such overhead BIF "shooting".</p>

<p>That is one of the uses ive seen but RARE.<br>

When shoooting birds you're normally at maximum zoom wide open and birds in flight you're always machinegunning. Ive seen uses like you talk about and when they worked they were FANTASTIC. But i think the photographers got lucky mostly. You really need to shoot birds from a tripod or monopod unless theyre large if you can. And fiddling with your flash as well as the constantly changing light as you move the camera across the sky etc has got to be a nightmare. On the other hand.. birds hide. They SEE whaty ou're doing and dont like it. A flash may scare them away but then again.. it'll get rid of the shadows theyre hiding in.</p>