A Barred Owlet at Extreme ISO and Some Insights on Flash Use

Marina Scarr was kind enough to take us (myself, my wife, and Dave Salem) to photograph a Barred Owl nest during our Florida trip. BPNers Troy Lim and Amy Marques were also there for both the shoot and for an enjoyable dinner afterwards. The light on the nest was both extremely challenging and constantly changing. When the light started to drop, I noticed that everyone was switching from fill flash to FAML (flash as main light) quite a bit sooner than I was. There's nothing wrong with FAML, and sometimes you have no choice but to employ the technique (think true nighttime bird photography). But FAML images have a totally flashed look that you simply cannot process away. I am a believer in capturing as much ambient light as possible for as long as possible before switching to FAML. The technique produces a more natural looking BG, and gives subject and BG a more balanced appearance.

In order to take ambient light to its limits you have to be willing to push your ISO, maybe higher than you ever thought possible. But the results can be worth it! I encourage you all to get out in the field and experiment. Push your ISO 1-3 stops higher than you ever have in the fading light of the day. Use fill flash to assist with subject lighting. And see what kind of results you get. You might be surprised!

Canon 1Dx, 600mm II + 1.4x III, f/5.6, 1/125, ISO 8000, manual exposure, fill flash at -2 1/3, tripod

For comparison's sake, here's a FAML shot taken a short time later. Which look do you prefer and why?

Doug, good post and a nice image. There's no doubt that FAML, unless the flash is off-axis (or diffused and very close to a small subject, e.g., true macro), is a sure recipe for a flashed-looking picture. I totally agree that going to a high ISO, even really pushing it as you did here, and using flash as fill is the better option.

Cheers,
Greg

Hi Doug, the OP at ISO-8000 and filled flash looks pretty good to me. It looks natural and retains the colors of the BG. I don't own a flash and had to push the iSO to 10000 on my recent trip to Botswana after sundown and in my case, the image looks pretty flat, but the noise isn't all that bad. I think it would look good with a filled flash to bring out the colors of the subject. TFS. Loi

Doug the original post is way better than the repost. I of course agree that going that high (with ISO) is not very appealing for many and I am first in line when it comes to use the lower ISO possible. I also believe that when one knows the capabilities of one's gear then there must be no fear.
I really like your choice of framing, the clean BG, I supposed you ran some NR there? and of course the cute specimen.

Hi Doug, Very informative post - thank you. Your shot with FAML appears sharper. Is that because you needed to run some noise reduction on the ISO 8000 image?
Regards, Ian

I will prefer the OP, Doug Sir.
Basically eyes looks very nice in natural lights. I agree with you even BG is very nice in OP.
Thank you so much for information.
Excellent image.Love the expression of cute one.

Regards,
Satish.

Amazing image Doug! Great tip and technique. What a cool find!

Really good pictures, i do not see the iso 8000.

but in the second picture i can see the flash in the eyes (i mean in the left eye the red shining), thats not looking good for me.

Greetings Eric

Hi Doug I like both images but prefer the first, having said that I strongly suspect had posted the second image and awaited comments all would have been favourable. I prefer the daylight look but having said that is this a diurnal or mainly nocturnal owl? Either way both excellent images.

Amazing. Never even remotely tried ISO that high.

Hi Doug, I too prefer the first image to the second as to me look just looks more natural. The second image is still nice though and gives the shot a nighttime look expected with owls.

The extreme ISO one (first) is so much better, Doug.
Why? Because it is far more pleasing to the eye and far more natural.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ian Wilson

Hi Doug, Very informative post - thank you. Your shot with FAML appears sharper. Is that because you needed to run some noise reduction on the ISO 8000 image?
Regards, Ian

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Hi Ian. Good question. The second frame is sharper for a number of reasons. Because I was shooting FAML, I had a much faster effective shutter speed. When using FAML you are shooting a dark frame in the absence of flash. Your effective shutter speed becomes the amount of time the flash is illuminated. At full flash power I'm guessing that the flash duration is about 1/2000 second. I was also able to stop down to f/8 for the second frame. And my ISO was only 1600.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jonathan Ashton

Hi Doug I like both images but prefer the first, having said that I strongly suspect had posted the second image and awaited comments all would have been favourable. I prefer the daylight look but having said that is this a diurnal or mainly nocturnal owl? Either way both excellent images.

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I don't have a problem shooting nocturnal species at night using FAML; it's entirely appropriate. But we had enough light to convey a sense of habitat when I shot the first frame. Going to FAML was turning day into night, and that's why I chose to remain faithful to the ambient lighting conditions and crank up the ISO. Had it truly been nighttime, I would have gone FAML.

No comparison for me the first blows the second away. If the flash squares were removed I doubt people would know it was even flashed.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Doug Brown

Hi Ian. Good question. The second frame is sharper for a number of reasons. Because I was shooting FAML, I had a much faster effective shutter speed. When using FAML you are shooting a dark frame in the absence of flash. Your effective shutter speed becomes the amount of time the flash is illuminated. At full flash power I'm guessing that the flash duration is about 1/2000 second. I was also able to stop down to f/8 for the second frame. And my ISO was only 1600.

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Doug, good explanation. Actually, I think a Canon 580 or 600 flash at full power is more like 1/750th to 1/1000th but no one knows for sure because Canon hasn't published duration charts. Nonetheless, your point about having a fast effective shutter with FAML obviously is still correct.

Cheers,
Greg

Doug, it was a fun evening and great discussions over dinner.
I am going to post my shot from that day shortly.

Thanks for the information, your first image is by far more natural. Using a flash is still very foreign to me, can't seem to comprehend my settings on the camera as well as my flash.

Def the first one for me, FAM never works for me unless there is something very special about the frame. the 2nd image is just unnatural to my eye and has the "steel eye" effect.

The owl is equally sharp in both frames, the tree truck is outside DOF in the first one.


great work

That was a fun evening and it was the first time I had used my flash for bird photography. We get 300 days a year of sun here and I dont get to shoot owls or jungle birds so my flash is completely foreign to me. Thanks for giving me a quick lesson that evening and I started to understand my flash for the first time. Shooting and adjusting all evening gave me the chance to see how the changes affected the exposure of the frame. I like the first shot much better with the ambient light included. The full flash at dark shot looks ok but it looks like what it is, a flashed shot at night.
Nice work and thanks for the lesson.

Thanks everyone for taking the time to participate! Now get out there and try high ISO with fill flash!

This is something I would love to try sometime down under, however, we don't really have that luxury in most instances.

We have only two families of owls locally. Our hawk owls (Fam. Strigidae) usually roost in terrible locations, in very dark spots, during daylight, and the barn owl types (fam. Tytonidae) usually roost in tree hollows and rarely outside of them.

You can, naturally, remove the red eyes from nocturnal shots BTW with careful post processing. Shooting in total darkness you cannot get away from using FAML. You guys outside of Australia are really spoiled with opportunities to photograph nocturnal species during daylight, or fading daylight, hours.