Wood Mouse

So there I was sat waiting for young, or certainly smaller than the big adult, badger which according to my Stealth Cam had been coming out at 8ish. They did not of course. But a whole family of wood mice were busying themselves digging up the peanuts I had put there :o So the yesterday I went back armed with 2 flashes, diffusors and 7D (plus 500MM and TC).

If anyone can help on the flash side please comment, I stuggled to make a natural looking picture. 2 flashes, 1 above to the left and one closer to the mound on the right.

And if anyone can tell me how to make brown fur BROWN, I would love to hear from you ;)

I can't tell you how to make brown fur brown, Neil, but one issue I do notice immediately. I started photography in the days when you had to use electronic flash for birds at nest. Our technique was not dissimilar to yours, and the problem was that with two flashes you tended to get two highlights in the eye, which does not happen in nature on a planet with only one sun. There was little you could do about this when we all shot transparencies. These days it is much simpler. That right hand highlight in the eye has got to go. Other than that I think your flash technique is great.

David

Hi Neil a very nice image, as for the brown bit I some times use a warm up filter (cokin) on one flash.

Phil.

Agree with David. This looks fine to me though. I did use three fshes at my pool before digital and got it nearly right but it was a lot of hassle setting up all the time.
As I say - this looks fine to me.
I have to say though the mush is my only nit. No big deal.
JR

Gotta have mush guys ;) Agree with you David and the other shots all have one highlight...fancy it being the one I posted I missed

OK, I may try 3 flashes, I have an old 420EXE but only works remotely with TTL which means all the flashes have to be TTL and not manual. Wish I knew what that meant

Thanks.

There is only one light source in real life but it is big and diffuse even on a sunny day and being bounced around like nobodies business... unfortunately we cannot emulate natural light... best way is probably to use as large a diffuser as is possible on both flash guns, or bounce them from large sheets of white card.... one providing the main the other fill at around 1/4 of the power of the main ... if you are going to introduce a third then use it to provide some light on the background... Colour looks ok, if you choose a flash white balance it does tend to be slightly warm, can you shoot a grey card in position that you can take your white balance from?

Never really used flashed so can not offer advice really but i do like shot, think it looks really good and not often seen

OK, cheers for that. More now on my blog.

I really like this Neil, and the images on your blog. On this one I'd prefer the mouse slightly lower in the frame so there's less OOF foreground, but otherwise it looks great.

Matt

Looks fine to me too. Would also prefer to see less than half the frame with mush

Neil i like it very much as posted,i find it very interesting the point David made re the two highlites i have noticed this on other images and could not figure out why,we live and learn!
Keith.