Monday, July 14, 2014

Better bird feeder pictures with off camera flash

Fujifilm X-E2, 55-200mm ƒ/3.5-4.8, ISO 400, ƒ/5.6, 1/180
I love our birdfeeders. We have two of the Brome 1015 Squirrel Buster Classic feeders. They keep the squirrels from eating the seed and the birds enjoy it.

When you start taking photos of the birds visiting outside the window, well you often have to open up the ƒ-stop by 1 or 2 stops since the house is on the shade side of the bird. This can often blow out the background.

The solution is to add a flash, but I didn't want an on camera flash for a few reasons. Having it on the camera and shooting through the glass would just give me a be glare.

I put the flash down out another window and I shot through another one. the result is what you see above.



I shot this with the Neewer TT850 flash [$104.95] and the Neewer 433MHz Wireless 16 Channel Flash Remote Trigger [$27]. This is a photo of the system above.


While not a TTL solution, I find it works just fine. Even the TTL solutions have to be tweaked so often that I really wonder if they are worth the extra money.

If the flash is too bright or dark I just adjust the EV up or down on the radio remote then push [SET] and it sets the flash. The flash must be on the same channel, but what is cool about this system is I can control up to 16 different channels. I have never shot anything with 16 flashes that I set at different power, but I guess I can if I want to.

Try this solution for yourself and by the way the solution will work on any camera that has a hot shoe flash mount.