A Little Something Different from Me

[fjrabon]

It's an interesting idea, but with none of it in focus at all it's a bit troublesome. Did you try popping a flash with it? I didn't bother to look at the exif info because I don't have that stupid thing installed yet, but I would think a flash pop might have frozen some of the bird while letting elements remain blurry as well?

It's an interesting idea, but with none of it in focus at all it's a bit troublesome. Did you try popping a flash with it? I didn't bother to look at the exif info because I don't have that stupid thing installed yet, but I would think a flash pop might have frozen some of the bird while letting elements remain blurry as well?

I don't really see how you could have concentrated a flash enough to nail part of the bird and not the whole bird. This technique is really difficult to get right on human models that you can position and give orders, let alone small moving birds.

Thanks, both of you for the feedback. Manaheim, no, I didn't use flash--that's a definite idea, although I agree with fjrabon, I'm afraid I'd end up getting more in focus than what I'm wanting. I'm still in the pretty early learning stages of flash--is there some kind of diy snoot or something I could put on my popup to try to direct the flash into as narrow an area as possible?
Ideally, this is gonna to be shot from a distance of 20-25 feet, if I can get a bird to repeat the procedure for me. :lmao:

fjrabon, you're right--I'm kinda asking for the moon here to try to get the exact same results, except for a small area of focus, on an already small, fast-moving object. But what the heck--not like I was having any BETTER luck getting them IN focus.

20-25 feet away, there is NO WAY you will be able to get your beam of light much tighter than maybe a circle 15-20 inches in diameter, and actually I think it would be substantially, way wider, that's just an absolute smallest area. Just way too much distance for the light to spill. In order to get a circle of around 10 inches in diameter, usually the light source has to be gridded and within 4 feet.

 

[sm4him]

It's an interesting idea, but with none of it in focus at all it's a bit troublesome. Did you try popping a flash with it? I didn't bother to look at the exif info because I don't have that stupid thing installed yet, but I would think a flash pop might have frozen some of the bird while letting elements remain blurry as well?

I don't really see how you could have concentrated a flash enough to nail part of the bird and not the whole bird. This technique is really difficult to get right on human models that you can position and give orders, let alone small moving birds.

Thanks, both of you for the feedback. Manaheim, no, I didn't use flash--that's a definite idea, although I agree with fjrabon, I'm afraid I'd end up getting more in focus than what I'm wanting. I'm still in the pretty early learning stages of flash--is there some kind of diy snoot or something I could put on my popup to try to direct the flash into as narrow an area as possible?
Ideally, this is gonna to be shot from a distance of 20-25 feet, if I can get a bird to repeat the procedure for me. :lmao:

fjrabon, you're right--I'm kinda asking for the moon here to try to get the exact same results, except for a small area of focus, on an already small, fast-moving object. But what the heck--not like I was having any BETTER luck getting them IN focus.

20-25 feet away, there is NO WAY you will be able to get your beam of light much tighter than maybe a circle 15-20 inches in diameter, and actually I think it would be substantially, way wider, that's just an absolute smallest area. Just way too much distance for the light to spill. In order to get a circle of around 10 inches in diameter, usually the light source has to be gridded and within 4 feet.

I suppose I could try to find a different area to do it. But I've kind of "staged" this particular area to increase the likelihood of getting a bird coming toward me like that, and probably 30 feet is the absolute most I can back up and get the same angle at that spot.

 

[manaheim]

Yeah, 20' is too far. Though if you have an external flash and some flash triggers, you could try setting the flash a bit closer to your subject and see what you can pull off.

 

[fjrabon]

I just don't think partial directly lit flash is a viable strategy at all here. Like I said, this is a difficult technique to pull off in a studio environment, with a human model, and full control of everything.

To get just part of a bird's body, ie just the beak and head? You'd just about need a laser from anything more than about 10 inches away.