Fill in Flash

Further to a discussion last week with Steve I decided today to go and take some bird shots today using fill in flash. It was a cold day so made sure I was well wrapped up warm as knew there was going to be a lot of standing still in the shade of the woods. I also wore my walking boots for support over the rougher terrain. The other items and equipment I took with me were:

1. Canon 500d DSLR
2. 75 - 300 Zoom lens (as not sure how far away I would be setting the camera)
3. 18 - 55 Zoom lens (as this would be the lens I would prefer to use if I could get close enough)
4. Canon Speedlite 430EX II flashgun (for fill in flash and more adjustment and range than built in flash)
5. Hana CA-1 Wireless remote shutter release (to allow me to get the camera close with me further away to take the shots)
6. Wild bird seed (to bring the subject nearer to the camera).
7. Tripod (to keep camera supported)

When I got to the bird hide at Branston water park I first set up the equipment from behind the Hide and did a few practise shots on a tree stump using a bottle as a subject. I wanted to do this to fist of all get the setting right for the flash (as not really used flash in manual settings before). The second reason is that if I could spend time getting the settings about right behind the hide then it would not take me long to set up the camera in front of the hide and would hopefully not scare too many birds away.

I then moved the camera in front of the hide, put bird seed on a stump, set up manual focus for mid point on the stump. The camera settings I started with were as follows:

1. ISO 200 (as although quite a bright day I was under tree cover and wanted a fast shutter speed)
2. Aperture f6.3 (again as using fast shutter speed and flash I needed a lot of light to get in the lens so that the background was not too dark which would make the flash too bright)
3. Shutter Speed 1/500 as wanted to go as fast as I dare in the light I had.
4. Flash Gun set to Hi Speed to allow it to work with 1/500 shutter speed
5. Flash gun set at 1/4 of its power (when doing test shots of the bottle full flash power seemed to bright)

Next I just stood behind the hide and snapped away.

To see images including the test shots click here.