Fill Flash ?

[Gliderparentntn]

Ok I have a question on using fill flash...

I'm basically using my 580EX with abetter beamer for wildlife shots.

My question is when do I need to use fill flash and what determines how EC in the use of fill flash is needed?

[tim]

Use fill flash when you need more light in parts of the subject. Experiment with EC until you're happy.

[DaveG]

Ok I have a question on using fill flash...

I'm basically using my 580EX with abetter beamer for wildlife shots.

My question is when do I need to use fill flash and what determines how EC in the use of fill flash is needed?

I don't think that flash use is an answer for every type of wildlife shooting. First off it may startle your subject and will certainly give away your position. You'll have to decide on that.

For appropriate subjects I would think that you could use a little fill flash to open up shadows somewhat. The effect I would want would be to not overpower the natural ambient light. I've seen this "overpowered fill" shot in many birding books, and I can see how useful it is as long as the intent of the photo is to simply reveal the bird for identification purposes. But for a more realistic looking image I'd just want enough fill to lighten the shadows.

What you are doing is lowering the contrast and which results in a lower lighting ratio between the highlights and the shadows. That means that you won't have clipped shadows and at the same time the image looks natural.

I'd simply use the ambient light exposure, with the highest shutterspeed flash sync my camera had and then I'd shoot using the flash exposure compensation (FEC) to adjust the output of the flash. This is always going to be a bit of trial and error, but as you get to know this kind of shot you'll probably find that you'll need to underexpose the flash by 1/3 of a stop (or whatever). This approach will also give you that "identification purpose" shot, kind of inadvertently as you bracket with the flash output; and as I said those shots have uses too.

[Rudy M.]

Dave G--that's a nice post--I am going to try some of your stuff next out with BB! Thanks.