We are talking Night time - pretty close to pitch black - flash as main light - wasn't sure how many shots I would get before Mr Frogmouth tired of my antics.
Autofocus was hopeless as you would expect - geez I could hardly make out the subject through the viewfinder - used a tiny torch to try and help me manually focus.
Got about 8 shots - this being the only one that is even close to being close to acceptable.
D3
Nikon 300MM F2.8 with 1.7 X Converter
F6.3
1/15TH
800 ISO
SB 800 Mounted on Camera
Manual Flash at full power
Handheld.
Should have bumped the ISO to 6400 - could have opened up to F2.8 but wanted some extra DOF seeing as I could not focus properly.
All in all a valuable lesson about working in the blackness.
*** Red Eye adjusted in P.S
Comments welcome and any other great idea's for working in the dead of night - also if this interests you have a look at this - www.phototrap.com.
I like it as presented Mr. Peters,
You did very well considering the conditions in which you had to work with. You should have done this, and you should have done that, but as they say, hind sight is 20/20...:D You did well my friend, congratulations...love it...looking forward to more of your nocturnal adventures...:):cool:
Lance, This is fantastic for night-time! I have no doubt you will master night time shooting!! I know that you don't like to alter your images but a sliver of canvas on the left wouldn't hurt.
you are a sick man to even attempt that shot!! but to get it with that much detail and sharpness is a feat! nice job! i like the frogmouths. there's one in the zoo in miami. and he's a poser too! how much redeye work did you have to do!!!?
Hi Mr H - Iris was red - made it black and then reduced the brightness a little. Find a don't have too much trouble hand holding a VR lens a 1/15th.
Love frogmouths - my resident pair seem to have flown the coup after our recent fires - cant find them anywhere :(
Question for you: if you were using flash as main light with full power, and did not mind having a all black background, i.e, ambient light was totally a non-factor, why did you shoot at 1/15s? You shot in aperture priority auto?
If so, would it be better to shoot in manual mode as you are using manual flash anyhow? At least you can use faster shutter speeds. :) No?
In the dark of Night
