On DAY-2 of the recently concluded SW FLA IPT we arrived quite early at the Venice Rookery only to find that there were no birds roosting there and thus, no early morning fly-out. There was one single and available Great Blue Heron displaying almost constantly from a rather clean perch with a distant background. It was dark. I remember saying to the group, "It's digital, you can experiment freely" as I was creating some four to six second exposures of the bird as it sky-pointed and bowed in hopes of attracting a female. I popped the flash at the beginning of the exposure and was confused to see two sharp images rather than one... At lunch, when I saw the image on my laptop, I realized that during the long exposure someone else had fired their flash towards the end of my exposure (at a slightly lower setting than my flash had been on). How fortuitous.
Canon 500mm f/4 L IS lens with the EOS 1D Mark III. Evaluative metering +1 1/3 stops: 6 seconds at f/4. Flash at -1 stop with Better Beamer.
All comments welcome. Later and love, artie
ps: Two days later I tried to achieve the same effect using the multi-flash firing but need to study the flash owner's manual as I quickly became confused by the three settings that need to be adjusted...
