Bird photography advice needed please?

Hi,

When photographing nocturnal species of bird is it possible to completely avoid any eye-shine/red eye,if so what sort of distance would you recomend the flash be off camera to achieve this.
The focal length will be either 400mm or 560mm, or taking into account the 1.6X crop factor 640mm and 896mm?
Light levels will be very low (dusk) but not completley dark.

Also am I right in believing it makes no difference whether the off camera flash is positioned above the lens or to one side?

I'm familiar with photographing birds, but nocturnal species will be a first.

Appreciate any advice,
Thanks,

Interesting question Justin, but based on my flash work with several animal species, I bet there's no fixed answer. Eye shape and size has a lot to do with it, and I'm guessing that the very nature of a nocturnal species eye (for gathering more light), might make it more susceptible than another species with its eyes partially dilated in brighter light.

I know some avian "photographers" (who will remain anonymous) will "substitute" daylight exposed eyes in night shots of owls. I can pick these images out in a heartbeat! Owls and other nocturnal birds have eyes that dilate so much that I'm not sure you can move the flash enough to prevent some amount of eye shine.

Try to shoot the bird as it looks a bit left or right may help. I have some very nice shots of what I call demonic owls, ( blood red eyes).

Owls and other nocturnal birds have eyes that dilate so much that I'm not sure you can move the flash enough to prevent some amount of eye shine.

I thought that may well be the case.



Many thanks to all for the useful info and suggestions so far.

Yes it is possible to flash birds at night and avoid red eye. The trick is to take the flash off camera. The problem is the further you are from your subject the further the flash needs to be off camera. The amount of dialation of the eye isn't important it only changes how large the red eye appears. I have used the kirk telephoto flash bracket with the extension with good results.

Thanks Stephen,

I was aware of taking the flash away from the lens axis,just trying to find out how much as I don't own a dedicated bracket and was planning to make something up for the purpose.
I'm planning to use the better beamer also,think I'll just try and make something that keeps the flash as far as possible but that isn't to unwieldy.

Thanks for your input,appreciate it.

I've not been happy w/ my results, using flash at night. On a couple of occassions, I've used a flashlight with much better results. This barred owl was taken with this technique, no photoshop tricks on the eyes.

That's a fine result Dan.

Thanks for the tip I never thought of that,I guess the only disadvantage to that is the very low light levels may cause some issues with subject movement although it sounds like it will be a good technique to use with birds who are likely to remain fairly still,which I guess is quite a few of the larger species once they're perched.

For many years I have mounted a flash unit on a monopod to get it away from the lens axis. A Better Beamer mounted on the unit should not be a problem. Th limitation here is the length of the connecting cord. Fully extended monopod plus the length my arm is about six feet. I seldom use on camera flash. I have also used the flash unit just held in my hand to position it at arms length from the lens axis.

That's a good tip,thanks Art.
I now have two Off camera leads which I've just found out can be joined together so that should help with keeping the flash a good distance from the camera.