Focus assist beam

Does this feature work OK in theory/practice with off camera flash?

I have Hedgehogs visiting my garden at night and have tried to get some shots of them with my yongnuo 568 ii. The trouble I am having is the assist beam is hitting the barrel of the lens (100-400mm mk2) and only part of it is then hitting the target and the focus is not locking on.

I was wondering if the flash gets 'involved' any further than just throwing light on the subject and subsequently if it makes any difference that the flash was a few feet away from the camera rather than hotshoe mounted.

if you use a TTL cord, the AF-assist would still work. if you don't have it, and this is just one-time thing you want to do (after all, the hedgehogs may just stop coming ), then you could just use a regular flashlight to get some light on the target (you'll probably need the camera on a tripod or an assistant holding the flashlight)

Thank you for your reply Green Li.

I had come up with a solution since posting. I put one of my 622 triggers on the hotshoe and then mounted the flashgun on top. The focus assist beam from the trigger clears the barrel of the lens and I am good to go.

Just need the hogs to return now!

haha. cool. good luck!!

I had a possum visiting me recently / see the attached photos

They're great!

Here's a shot of the hogs I managed (fluked) with manual focus in the dark.

Another option that I've seen used a few times to capture night animals is to use lots of flash, stop the lens down fairly far, and then ballpark manual focus. Do you have enough flash power to get down to f/8 or so and still be effective?

I am pretty noobish when it comes to flash but I would imagine I have the ability to do as suggested and will experiment a bit before risking missing the live action. Thanks Luckless.

do you just have the one flash?

man, it's so cute. makes me want to hug him…. wait! it's a hedgehog. bad idea

Yes just the one. Do you have a suggestion that would require more?

assuming you don't know where they are going to be exactly, i was thinking that having a light on either side of you would help illuminate the whole area. might be kind of boring light though.

another alternative would be to put one light behind where you thought they would be and one above your position. That gets into some guess work on where they might show up, but seeing your above photo my first thought was that a hair light or some kind of rim lighting would be nice.

Yes, having more lights on hand, such as a bag of cheap yongnuo flashes, means you can be more flexible with your lighting. I'm slowly building my kit towards three or four 600w/s studio style flashes, but I still want to get more cheap little strobes. You can hide them places and really play with how the light gets shaped and where it is coming from.

Just remember to keep an eye on rain and dew risks when putting electronics out later in the evening.

even something cheap like these slave strobes would do the trick: http://www.bhphotovide​o.com …C-DC/ci/1239/N/398859206​4

Cool, thanks for the info.

I am putting feed out so hope to have a small element of control over where they will be positioned. I also have a shot in my mind where it will be rim lit as I think this will look really effective on the hedgehog.

Time for some more yongnuos!