Flash for bird photography

[tim_whalen2]

I'm looking for a good, reasonably priced flash to use for bird

photography and general photography. I'm considering a Sunpak 511 or

555. I like the handle mount concept of these flashes, the power, but

not the bulk. I use a Nikon N90s and the majority of the bird

photography that I will use the flash for is in the range of 4 to 20

feet as I do a lot of shooting in my back yard from behind a blind in

my kitchen or screen porch. What I would really like to find is a

shoe mount flash that has a tilt head and manual zoom feature, but

most importantly, can be used off the camera using a PC cord. This

would allow me to mount the flash on a tripod near my feeder and

illuminate my subjects; mostly song birds, cardinals, etc. Most of

the time I am shooting in the aperture priority mode. I am on a

budget and don't want to spend a fortune on a flash. Most of the

flashes that I have looked at (Sunpak, Vivitar, etc.) seem to be

compatible with my N90s, but lack the PC connection. Any suggestions?

[art_haykin]

Look at the Vivitar 285, and a cord to the hotfoot on the unit.

[stemked]

I work from a Pentax system, but would add that it is often good to use more than one flash, particularly for lighting behind your subject, otherwise you will often get that 'night look' to your shot.

[dennis__skip__higgins]

I also use various pieces of Nikon equipment including the N90s along with several flash units. Your parameters; 1) not wanting to spend a fortune, 2) want to use the flash off-camera 3) needing a PC or electronic connection, and 4) flash distance is mainly 4 ~ 20 feet.

 

A fairly simple solution would be to purchase (new or used) a Nikon SC-17 flash connection ($30~50 USD)which mounts to the hot shoe of the N90s and provides a second hot shoe with tripod socket. To this mount the inexpensive (new or used) SB-23 flash ($80~ 120 USD) which will allow you TTL capability with the N90s and more than adequate flash power for the distance you mentioned and beyond. Should you wish to expand your system, the flash and cord will remain indispensible to you and your total cost, even new, will be under $200 USD.

 

While this unit does not provide flash focus, you said you are mounting it on a tripod and at your stated distance, this should have little bearing provided it was "aimed" from the tripod.

[todd_west]

I personally find the use of flash on wildlife to be on pretty shaky ethical ground. If you can rent or borrow a flash unit or a camera with an on-camera flash, I'd try that first and give up on the idea of setting up flashes on the feeder if it's too disruptive for the birds.

 

That having been said, one of the wildlife pros I know does use a pair of Vivitar 283s for flash when there's not enough light to freeze motion due to clouds or forest canopy. He doesn't use them at night, and works with the minimum flash power possible.

[attila]

Any flash you choose to buy, you might consider to get a Better Beamer Flash X-Tender.. see

<a href="http://www.birdsasart.com/accs.html#BEAMER"</a> Arthur Morris's web site

[greg s]

Recently, I was photographing birds in Costa Rica and at lunchtime a wild toucan came in for a landing near the table. This guy is a 'regular' at the hacienda. But someone had once (from close range) fired off a flash camera and temporarily blinded the bird in one eye. He's better now but you can still see one of his eyelids is drooped.

 

Moral of the story: If one is going to use a flash on birds, or other wildlife, the more distance = the better. Of course the problem is knowing how much distance is enough for the welfare of the subject. It would be nice if there were some scientifically based guidelines, but I doubt there are.

[ryan_taylor1]

For my doctoral work I am currently studying the role of vision in treefrog mating systems. I would like to clarify a couple of issues regarding the ethics of flash photography in shooting wildlife.

One of the things that can inhibit or change an animal's behavior is the relative shift/change in illumination. One of my colleagues has published a paper demonstrating that rapid changes in illumination causes photobleaching of the visual pigments in the retinas of frogs. Not suprisingly, the behavioral result is a decrease in their ability to find and capture prey using visual cues. However, it is indeed a temporary condition. Once the photopigments in the retina "recover" the frog is just fine. This has implications for photographing nocturnal animals such as frogs. If a photographer sets up and repeatedly blasts a calling frog with a flash unit, it is likely to take the frog many hours to regain its visual capabilities. In my experience, though, a couple of flash bursts on a calling male frog does not seem to do much harm. The male will cease calling momentarily, and then resume its calling behavior. The photopigments in its eye are certainly bleached but they will recover fairly quickly (much more so than with continued flash bursts) When I am conducting my research I simply limit the number of flash photos taken of an individual frog to two or three. By doing so the frog quickly resumes its normal behavior and I cause relatively little disruption.

 

Another story is the use of fill flash on birds. The relative shift in illumination in this case is much lower than for nocturnal animals.

Photobleaching of retinal pigments is minimal and in fact, most birds will ignore a flash burst used for fill. I seriously doubt that a toucan was harmed by a flash unit (unless maybe it was fired into the eye at point blank range, I can't image that was the case). At any rate, even if the flash damaged the toucan's vision, it would not make the birds eyelid droop. Eyelids are controlled by a seperate set of muscles that would be utterly unaffected by the flash.

 

I appreciate the fact that photographers are thinking about the welfare of their subjects. However, as far as flash is concerned, I think that it is only an issue with nocturnal subjects. The effect of flash use on nocturnal subjects can be minimized by using only a few flash bursts on any individual and then moving on.

[greg s]

"I seriously doubt that a toucan was harmed by a flash unit (unless maybe it was fired into the eye at point blank range, I can't image that was the case)."

 

Tim, I believe this was exactly the case. The bird sits on table tops and can be photographed at any distance desired. The info given was garnered from people who know the bird well and witnessed the event and its effects. But, only the bird knows for sure.