Ordinarily, I try to do my best to avoid eyeshine when photographing animals at night. The best way to do this is to get the flash off the camera — preferably way off. But sometimes, even that doesn’t help if my positioning and distance to the subject isn’t quite right. In this case, the tripod mounted flash wasn’t far enough away from me to avoid the orange glow of the distant wallaby’s eye. I feel that in this photo, however, it ended up being a happy accident. The eyeshine adds life (and a bit of devilishness) to the wallaby as it casts a shadow across its face while cleaning, and seemingly hiding behind its tail. Nikon D810 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 400mm) ISO 800, f/4 at 1/200th of a second, Nikon SB-900 flash
Really creative shot! How on earth do you get an off camera flash set up without scaring the animals away? How close is your flash to this guy? Just curious about logistics! Thanks
Thanks Amanda. In Tasmania, I mostly used one flash (usually I use two on a flash bracket attached to my camera for nocturnal shooting). The flash was attached to a lightweight tripod, about five feet from the ground. I would search around in the dark and when I saw something, I would simply put the tripod/flash down, pointed at the subject, and then I’d walk twenty or so feet away, depending on the situation, and take the shot. Animals like possums and wallabies are very accepting of human presence. They very rarely ran away, especially if I moved slowly and was by myself. For this photo, I must have been about thirty feet away from the animal and about ten or fifteen feet away from the flash (all points forming a bit of a triangle).
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Ordinarily, I try to do my best to avoid eyeshine when photographing animals at night. The best way to do this is to get the flash off the camera — preferably way off. But sometimes, even that doesn’t help if my positioning and distance to the subject isn’t quite right. In this case, the tripod mounted flash wasn’t far enough away from me to avoid the orange glow of the distant wallaby’s eye. I feel that in this photo, however, it ended up being a happy accident. The eyeshine adds life (and a bit of devilishness) to the wallaby as it casts a shadow across its face while cleaning, and seemingly hiding behind its tail.
Dang near spooky, that one glowing eye.
—– Not gleam of Hades
—– Simmer of lifes true oven
—– Same made lamb and thee .
Really creative shot! How on earth do you get an off camera flash set up without scaring the animals away? How close is your flash to this guy? Just curious about logistics! Thanks
Thanks Amanda. In Tasmania, I mostly used one flash (usually I use two on a flash bracket attached to my camera for nocturnal shooting). The flash was attached to a lightweight tripod, about five feet from the ground. I would search around in the dark and when I saw something, I would simply put the tripod/flash down, pointed at the subject, and then I’d walk twenty or so feet away, depending on the situation, and take the shot. Animals like possums and wallabies are very accepting of human presence. They very rarely ran away, especially if I moved slowly and was by myself. For this photo, I must have been about thirty feet away from the animal and about ten or fifteen feet away from the flash (all points forming a bit of a triangle).
great pic. ?