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Prong-billed Barbet & Emerald Toucanet - Challenging Flash Situation

From time to time I plan on posting images that will serve educational purposes. My first here is of a Prong-billed Barbet, photographed at the LaPaz Waterfall Gardens in Costa Rica, last December. Here is the shot:

1D2_02458.jpg


The bird was posing fairly nicely, within shooting distance of my Canon 100/f2.8 Macro lens (I was mainly shooting butterflies, frogs, etc.). But there was virtually no light on the bird, and while there wasn't much light behind him the background was significantly brighter. I normally prefer Ambient Light photography, and took a couple of shots this way, but wanted to try some using the flash as the main source of light to illuminate the bird. (With virtually no light on the bird, "fill-flash" wouldn't be sufficient to get what I wanted.)

The Ambient Light shot was ISO 400, f/4, 1/250 second. I decreased ISO to 200, to reduce exposure and darken the background. I switched on my flash (MR-24EX - again, I was geared up for macro work), and took some shots. The challenge here is that ETTL2 was getting "fooled" by the relatively small size of the bird (the image here represents a moderate crop of the original), and with the background quite a distance away, it was markedly overexposing the bird. I had to cut back on Flash Exposure Compensation (FEC), ultimately to -2 EV in order to get the proper exposure, but this was somewhat a trial and error process.

The result is still a little "too flashed" for my taste, but it is still useful for instructional purposes here.

After moving on to another subject, my brain finally got into gear, and I remembered that this would be a perfect situation for FEL - Flash Exposure Lock. This is a feature on Canon cameras where you place the central focus point on your subject, hit the FEL button, and the flash exposure will be calculated for that specific area. This way, it wouldn't be "fooled" by anything else in the background, the relative size of the bird in the frame, etc.

I used this in the next shot - the Emerald Toucanet, this time with FEC at 0, since I was using a relatively "neutral" area on the bird for the FEC measurement. Here is the result:

1D2_02459.jpg



Any comments, questions on this topic welcome.
 

Kyle Nagel

New member
I have noticed that when using flash with wildlife the glint from the flash in their eyes seems to unconsciously make you more aware that a flash was used, and though the lighting may already have an artificial flash look, that glint in the eye seems to exaggerate it. I found that by removing the glint from the eye the psychology of not seeing it helps remove some of "flash" look. I have also just toned it down to a dark grey rather than white on some occasions, still giving the eye some dimension, but removing the obvious flash glint.

Kyle
 

KrisCarnmarker

New member
That picture of the Toucanet certainly has much better lighting; its a great shot IMO. Did you add any contrast in post-processing or is that the actual result straight out of the camera?

I have never used the FEL function. Does it behave the same way on all Canon systems? I am still struggling with Canon's flash implementation and usually go manual. However, if flash exposure is only calculated for the central focusing area on my camera as well I will be extremely happy :) I'm going to try that out asap!

Thanks so much for sharing Don!

BTW, would you mind using the image of the frog inside the leaf that appears on the front page in a future tutorial? That image is absolutely fantastic!

/Kris
 
Hi Kyle,

Kyle Nagel said:
I have noticed that when using flash with wildlife the glint from the flash in their eyes seems to unconsciously make you more aware that a flash was used, and though the lighting may already have an artificial flash look, that glint in the eye seems to exaggerate it. I found that by removing the glint from the eye the psychology of not seeing it helps remove some of "flash" look. I have also just toned it down to a dark grey rather than white on some occasions, still giving the eye some dimension, but removing the obvious flash glint.

Kyle

Thanks for the comments. I know exactly what you're talking about with respect to the "catch-light" being a little too "over-the-top" in flashed animal photos. It's kind of ironic, because most bird photographers will use a little fill-flash precisely in order to create a catch-light in the birds eye. Without it, the bird tends to look somewhat life-less, as you point out.

I think I'm still inclined to keep it there, but perhaps tone it down somewhat in post-processing, and prevent it from getting too prominent (e.g. sharpening will definitely accentuate it), just as you alluded to in your workflow.

And to diverge a little off-topic here, this brings up the question of putting a catch-light in an animal's eye after the fact, in Photoshop. Is this any more artificial than shooting off an electronic flash while in the field? I can see both sides of this issue.
 
Hi Kris,

KrisCarnmarker said:
That picture of the Toucanet certainly has much better lighting; its a great shot IMO. Did you add any contrast in post-processing or is that the actual result straight out of the camera?

Thanks for the reply and kind words! As for post-processing, since I shoot Raw, there is, by definition, some adjustment in terms of tonality, contrast, color balance, etc. I can even wax philosophical about this, and make the statement that there really is no such thing as "straight out of the camera." Even if you shoot Jpeg, the camera sets, or you have selected settings, in terms of applying adjustments in contrast, saturation, color balance, etc. to the Raw sensor data, so the idea of a "non-adjusted" image is really an illusion. But I digress :)

But to answer your question, essentially all of my shots have some adjustments made to exposure/tonality, whether in the process of Raw conversion, or in Photoshop afterward, with the intent of restoring or achieving what our eyes can see (with their extremely wide dynamic range), and which so far can't be completely or correctly captured directly by the electronic sensor, which has a much narrower dynamic range.

I have never used the FEL function. Does it behave the same way on all Canon systems? I am still struggling with Canon's flash implementation and usually go manual. However, if flash exposure is only calculated for the central focusing area on my camera as well I will be extremely happy :) I'm going to try that out asap!

The basic concept of FEL is the same, but its implementation will vary from camera to camera. Which body are you using? In the 1-series cameras, there is a physically separate FEL button, which really helps. In the 20D, 30D, 350D, etc., it doesn't have a separate button, and typically is initiated by pressing the "*" button on the back. The problem here is that many people (including myself) make the * button control AutoFocus (via Custom Function), and if this is done, it can't be used to initiate FEL.

Thanks so much for sharing Don!

BTW, would you mind using the image of the frog inside the leaf that appears on the front page in a future tutorial? That image is absolutely fantastic!

/Kris

You're quite welcome, and thanks for the suggestion on using the Red Eyed Tree Frog image in a future post.
 

Kyle Nagel

New member
And to diverge a little off-topic here, this brings up the question of putting a catch-light in an animal's eye after the fact, in Photoshop. Is this any more artificial than shooting off an electronic flash while in the field? I can see both sides of this issue.

For some reason very bright crisp catch lights in animal's eyes tend to make me feel the image is "staged", it's similar to watching a movie and the cinematographer does that "artsy" shot into the sun where the elements in the lens creates the row of overlapping light circles, this just seems to take away from the movie and tells me there is a photographer standing there shooting the scene making me very aware of the presence of the camera. I do agree the eyes need dimension, that is why toning down the glint to a dark grey and feathering it into the rest of the eye gives it dimension and life without it looking terribly artificial, also adding the same thing when not present can add "life" to the subject. On some animals however any glint at all just doesn't seem quite right in my opinion, I do think it works better with small birds than in a lot of other situations, with the second shot (of the Emerald Toucanet) the glint isn't too distracting, it just seemed to jump out at me in the first shot, which with the lighting you pointed out made it a bit much I think. As far as adding it after the fact, I don't see it that far from creating it with the flash at the time of the shot, in both situations they were created by the photographer, not the environment.

Kyle
 

KrisCarnmarker

New member
Don Cohen said:
Hi Kris,
I can even wax philosophical about this, and make the statement that there really is no such thing as "straight out of the camera." Even if you shoot Jpeg, the camera sets, or you have selected settings, in terms of applying adjustments in contrast, saturation, color balance, etc. to the Raw sensor data, so the idea of a "non-adjusted" image is really an illusion. But I digress :)

I agree completely. I was just trying to get an idea of how much of the difference in your two shots where due to what. The second one now only looked better lit, but also had more depth.
 
KrisCarnmarker said:
I agree completely. I was just trying to get an idea of how much of the difference in your two shots where due to what. The second one now only looked better lit, but also had more depth.

I would say both had similar amounts, and types, of post-processing. I see what you mean about the difference in "depth." It might just be visual clues from the rest of the scene providing somewhat greater sense of depth, possibly the backward pointing tail of the Toucanet being somewhat out of focus, etc.

Best,
 

Gary Jean

New member
Nice little tutorial and beautiful shots as well. Agree the 1st is overflashed a bit. The 2nd shows how well ETTL can work...when one knows how to use it!

A question on the 1st shot. What metering mode and what focus points did you use? I'm guessing matrix metering and a single focus point.

Would ETTL have provided better results with spot (or even possibly partial) metering on the bird?
 
HI Gary,
Gary said:
Nice little tutorial and beautiful shots as well. Agree the 1st is overflashed a bit. The 2nd shows how well ETTL can work...when one knows how to use it!

A question on the 1st shot. What metering mode and what focus points did you use? I'm guessing matrix metering and a single focus point.

Would ETTL have provided better results with spot (or even possibly partial) metering on the bird?

Thanks. With reference to your question about the first shot:

I almost always use spot metering, manual metering mode, with manual selection of the center focus point.

With the original ETTL, flash metering was coupled to the active focus point, and this was the source of a lot of inconsistency in exposure (consider the example of a shot of a bride and groom - if the active focus point is on the groom's black tux, ETTL will overexpose, relative to if it happened to be on the bride's white dress.

With ETTL2, flash metering is no longer coupled to the active focus point, so it generally provides more consistent flash exposure. In this particular image, the best flash exposure would be obtained by using FEL, placing the center focus point on the bird's body, with FEC around 0.

And looking at that first image, I could probably re-post-process, and use the Shadows and Highlights tool a little more to tone down the flashed look, and avoid over-sharpening and accentuating the catch-light in the eye.

If this doesn't properly address your question, please reply and clarify.

Best,
 

Gary Jean

New member
Thanks Don. I'm still trying to shake ingrained ETTL thinking as I learn what ETTL-2 can do. Appreciate the explanation.
 
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