Wildlife Photography across the Water: Steel Eye

Thursday, 6 May 2010

Steel Eye

Its become very popular to use flash when shooting birds to help remove shadows and put a glint in the eye, Today's bird photographers are using long lenses and better beamers on their flashguns, The beamers concentrate the light and can add 3 extra stops to the power, This is great as a lot of the time the birds can be far away and the extra light can really help, The problem is when they are not far away and the extra light can cause 'Steel Eye' this is like red eye on a human except that on a bird it goes grey, The problem is worse if you use the on board flash or have the flash attached to the camera, So where possible use the flash off camera on a flash bracket,Flash to me should be done where its difficult to tell that it has been used-with finese,For proper fill flash you should get a good exposure even if the flash doesn't go off-The flash is purely there to lift the shadows, Thsi normally means dialling in a - figure to reduce its out put, When i was in Florida i spent some days shooting birds at the rookery's flying on with nesting material, I found that to fill the under-wing shady areas i need to use the SB900 with the better beamer at full power and then add +3, That's a lot of flash but it worked, The problem was if i grabbed a shot of a closer bird on the nest without turning the flash down, Now this only happened a couple of times and although there is evidence to steel eye its not bad, I have seen very bad steel eye and to me it completely ruins the image, It can be taken out in processing but to me never looks 100% natural , So take care when using better beamers with too much power dialled in or when using the camera's built in flash or have your flash attached to the camera itself
Here are a couple of example from the Florida trip, The top image shows a small amount of steel eye and the bottom image is where i have shot fast and the flash hasnt gone off-another method worth using so that you have both options

Its not that clear on small jpegs but i think you should be able to see the difference

Dave

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Bio's

David Courtenay, a self taught wildlife and nature photographer, has been capturing images for over 30 years. He has had a passion for wildlife since early childhood and remembers being glued to the television whenever Survival, Wildlife on One and other natural history documentaries were shown. In the 2006 he swapped his established career for the life of a wildlife photographer, such a move demands a measure of uncompromising passion and commitment.

David has travelled extensively throughout Europe as well as spending more than 7 months in India working with local guides and trackers in search of Bengal Tiger, Asian One horned Rhino and Asian Elephant. He has also photographed Wildlife in Australia, Malaysia, Thailand, Sumatra, Africa, Canada and America. Working closely with Conservation companies he tries to raise funds to help Wildlife that has been put on the endangered list by poaching and habitation loss

Martin Dyer has had a passion for avian wildlife since childhood, particularly raptors. Photography was also another keen interest and it was with the specific availability and control of the whole process that digital offers that Martin was then able to combine the two in 2003. Based in the UK, Martin is a regular visitor to Scotland, specifically the Isle of Mull to watch the Eagles resident there. Other trips to Europe and around the UK are usually part of Martin’s agenda in a typical year.

However, as a firm believer on making the most of the local patch, Martin has spent a lot of time and hard work creating a wildlife garden which is reaping the rewards with many new species and varieties of wildlife. A keen member of a number of wildlife photographic groups, Martin is keen to expand his portfolio into other areas of wildlife, and has already established a wide portfolio of images of fungi.