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Photo Forum / Photo Technique / Nature Photography / August 2005avoiding red eye when photographing owls
Anyone using fill flash on large owls and *not* getting red-eye? I've found the early AM pet roosting spot for a Great Horned Owl and two of its large chicks but it's almost directly back-lit from the only spot I can shoot from, so I need fill flash. I can get them full frame with 700 mm (equiv to about 900 mm with the digital body I'm using) so probably about 20 yards distance. The problem is that I get red-eye when they're lQQking my direction and they're not very interesting when looking to the side. I'm using a Canon 550EX flash off-camera at - 1.67 stops with a Better Beamer extender on a 500 mm lens and have the flash mounted several inches above the lens with a Wimberley flash bracket. I've never had a problem with red eye in birds before with this setup but with these larger birds with huge eyes at this distance it's a problem. I also tried removing the flash from the bracket and holding it to one side about 2 ft from the body (about as far as the cord will stretch) but still get some red-eye, so I was wondering how people avoid it. I have a wireless flash controller (ST-E2) so I could move the flash even further and still fire it in E-TTL mode but it's a hassle to do this. I know how to 'fix' red-eye in Photoshop but I prefer to get it right in the camera, partly because I may need to send in the RAW file at some point and partly because I just prefer getting it right in-camera. Anyone know how far off-camera the flash needs to be for this type situation? I can post a few sample shots if anyone wants to see the problem. Bill > Anyone using fill flash on large owls and *not* getting red-eye? <snip> any way you can get the flash about 1 foot off/above the camera? if you can move the flash higher that the lense it should eliminate the redeye your getting. (or green eye in most animals) cheers kat > Anyone using fill flash on large owls and *not* getting red-eye? I've > found the early AM pet roosting spot for a Great Horned Owl and two of [quoted text clipped - 26 lines] > > Bill Hi Bill, Boy, this newsgroup is very slow. A couple of years ago you would probably have gotten a couple of dozen responses. Where did everyone go? Regarding the red eye problem, angle off axis is pretty much the only solution. The red eye problem is a reflection off the back of the eyeball. When the angle is large, that reflection does not make it out of the eye, hitting the inside of the eye. A pre-flash helps a little on humans; I don't know about owls. I've seen a lot of "white eye" with flash on birds. I've never seen red eye, but then I've never used a flash on an owl. Roger > Roger writes ... > >Regarding the red eye problem, angle off axis is pretty >much the only solution. The red eye problem is a reflection >off the back of the eyeball. Hi Roger, Yes, I know what causes it and 'theoretically' how to avoid it, but was looking for specific data on how far off-camera one has to move the flash for Great Horned owls at these distances. >A pre-flash helps a little on humans; I don't know about owls. At this distance the pre-flash (red eye reduction mode option) doesn't help. >I've seen a lot of "white eye" with flash on birds. I've never >seen red eye I can fix that (grin) ... here are four crops showing the problem using the flash bracket like I normally do, then what happens when I move the flash about 18" or so further off (about as long as the off-camera flash cord will stretch before it pulls too much on the tripod) ... http://members.aol.com/bhilton665/owl_redeye.jpg ... this reduces the red eye more or less, depending on the bird and how he has his head turned, I think. Actually I can live with the bottom-left shot. When putting this jpeg together I realized I had only seen a couple of other cases of red eye even when using flash thousands of times ... then I realized that a Burrowing owl I shot a couple of weeks ago looked great even though I used fill flash on him too ... http://members.aol.com/bhilton665/bowl_detail.jpg (this shot the flash is off but the two previous frames it was on and they look fine) ... I'm not sure if this Burrowing owl is fine because I'm much closer or because I'm at a better angle (he was about chest high while the Great Horned owls were maybe 30 ft off the ground) or because the eye structure is different in the burrowing owl compared to the GH owl. Probably the angle and distance. At any rate I'll keep working on it so long as the owls let me practice on them. They were gone today, but we did find a Lesser Nighthawk nest with newly born fuzzy chicks ... Bill >I'll keep working on it so long as the owls let me practice >on them. Today I found a sure-fire way to avoid red eye in owls ... http://members.aol.com/bhilton665/redeye_3.jpg >but we did find a Lesser Nighthawk nest >with newly born fuzzy chicks Here is one of the better shots of mom and kids ... these guys blend into the rocks like no other bird I've seen. http://members.aol.com/bhilton665/nh.jpg Bill ('scuse late replay, haven't been here lately.) So have you found a workable solution? I shot some Northern Spotted Owls using flash as the main light. I got redeye even when they were looking so far to the side I could only see one eye (on-camera flash). But when I waited for a shaft of early morning light to hit the own sitting on a moss-covered old growth redwood limb, I did not use flash and the shot was magical. Maybe that's the key: Wait for the right light. Now isn't that helpful? Did you try angling the 550EX up with the catchlight screen up? -- - Alan Justice > Anyone using fill flash on large owls and *not* getting red-eye? I've > found the early AM pet roosting spot for a Great Horned Owl and two of [quoted text clipped - 26 lines] > > Bill >Alan Justice writes ... > > So have you found a workable solution? Besides shooting the other end, like this ... http://members.aol.com/bhilton665/redeye_3.jpg ? Holding the flash off-camera a couple of feet fixed the worst of it, especially when I moved the flash to the other side of where they are lQQking. If I were doing a lot of this I'd just take the flash completely off-camera and use the ST-E2 remote IR controller, which still keeps full E-TTL functionality. >Wait for the right light. They were back lit ... the 'right light' would require a 10-11 hour wait :) In the wild you often have to do the best you can with the light you have at the moment. >Did you try angling the 550EX up with the catchlight screen up? This will only give you a catchlight in the eye (if they are close enough). I needed fill light, which is entirely different. Bill |
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