A Bat

[Doug Brown]

I spent a few nights photographing bats at Bill Forbes' pond during my Arizona visit. It was a lot of fun! This is one of my favorite frames.

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Canon 1D Mark IV, 300mm, f/11, bulb exposure using FAML, tripod<embed id="application/x-exifeverywhere" type="application/x-exifeverywhere" width="0" height="0">

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Doug, would it be possible if you could add the set-up and how you tracked the bats in such low light I assume, be useful BKG.

cheers
Steve :wave:

[Sid Garige]

Just brilliant Doug. Wonderful pose and perfect techs.

[dankearl]

Very cool, that would be fun.
The water drip, the light, just awesome.

[Rachel Hollander]

Doug - great wing position and the water drop takes it over the top.

TFS,
Rachel

[Colin Knight]

Wonderful! I would be interested in the setup as well.

[Ken Watkins]

Doug,

This is quite remarkable, nice to see something different.
How did you do it is the question?

[gail bisson]

Superb and very cool. Love the little thumb and full wingspread.
Gail

[Dumay de Boulle]

Man this is a cracker...All I can say is great work.

[Harshad Barve]

Excellent image indeed
TFS

[Doug Brown]

<embed id="application/x-exifeverywhere" type="application/x-exifeverywhere" width="0" height="0">Thanks for the comments! Here's the basic technique. Elephant Head is a small man-made pond. Bill Forbes is the owner of the pond and also the inventor of the Phototrap (an infrared beam system, which when broken will trigger your camera or your flashes- kind of like when you go to a store and a beep alerts the salesperson to your arrival). The Phototrap is set up across the pond and wired to a series of flashes. You put your camera on a tripod, set it on bulb mode and prefocus in the area of the infrared beam. Then you move away from the pond and watch the action on an infrared camera. When you see a bat circle the pond, you hit your cable release and hope that the bat breaks the beam. Since you are photographing in darkness, you are using flash as main light. This will freeze the action in the same way that a multiple flash setup freezes a hummingbird's wings.

[Ken Watkins]

Doug,

Thanks for the info, you clearly put in a lot of work, but the result was well worth it:cheers:

[Andrew Merwin]

Superlative image. Thanks for the "how to" explanation. I really like the water drop that is coming off the bat's mouth. TFS.

[Morkel Erasmus]

Great wingspread here Doug!
Thanks for the info. I've seen many of Bill's amazing images and it's great to see you taking a swing at it too. :bg3:
I might try and tone down the very brightest tones to reduce the "flashed" look??