It’s pitch black, the trail is narrow, slippery and heading downhill. Headlamp on the forehead and I’m pouring sweat. Pouring! Sounds like a perfect night to head into the Costa Rica rainforest to find and photograph some frogs. Before ever heading down the trail, had to do that photography thing first. Get the gear out, set up and tested. With sweat pouring down your face, with slippery footing and trying to find a small subject in the viewfinder, in the field is not to time or place to set up up gear.
I took this gear to Costa Rica specifically for photographing the frogs. The D750 for a couple of reasons. One, it’s so light it is very easy to hold in one hand. Two, it’s pop up flash, that was key. Three, love the detail its file produces. The lens, the old 70-180macro zoom. It’s still one of the finest lenses Nikon has ever made IMHO and does 1:1 with a HUGE working range. Lastly, the SB-910, the light of the party! You might asking why the D750 pop flash was essential, right? … because you’re heard it’s a horrible light source. Well, it is! But walking through a rainforest or trying to photograph frogs on reeds and leaves, the last thing you want is a cable dancing around. Ya, you could shoot with the SC-28 quite easily but you take the risk, big risk of it hitting that leaf and causing the frog to jump. That’s why I like the pop up flash to command the flash.
Prior to ever being in front of a subject, you want to have the entire rig set up and tested. That way when you’re at the subject, you just start shooting. In this case, the camera is set to M and the shutter speed to 1/250. The flash is the key and only light so no reason to use a slow shutter speed. I prefer to shoot in manual focus mode, prefocusing for a given ratio and then moving the whole right closer or further from the subject to actually focus. Lastly is the flash. As you can see from above, I’ve gone into the Custom Menu to the pop flash and set it in Commander Mode and that I’m shooting Group B Channel 4. You have to make sure that your flash unit is set to the exact same Group and Channel. When it comes to flash compensation, because it was dark and the button is so small, rather than dialing it in via the flash, I’m dealing it in via the body. Then once all of this is done, I find some small subject to take test shots prior to going out in the field to make sure everything is working.
You can see three different lighting patterns in the three photos here. This is achieved by simply moving the flash about. The trick here is two fold. First, you need to make sure that the light from the flash directly hits the subject. Shooting like this in the rainforest with wild critters, you shoot them where you find them a lot. If there is a leaf, twig or branch between the flash and the subject, you will have a big, black shadow going across your subject. A ruined photo. So moving the flash around is important and why using the pop up flash so essential. If you had the connecting TTL cable, you might miss a shoot or two. The other trick is working the flash itself. The sensor on the side of the SB-910 needs to see the commanding light from the pop up flash. So you can’t block it. Then since you’re looking through the viewfinder, you have to be able to position the light. What I do is “push” the SB-910 into the frame until I see it in the viewfinder. This way, I can see where it is and where it is pointed. With that done, I simply “pull it out” until I no longer see the flash. Then I shoot.
What you’ve got here at the top is a Red-eyed Tree Frog with the flash off above and to the front of the frog. Next image is the same frog but with the flash in the more traditional position nearish the hot shoe. Hopefully you can see the big difference in the light. The last image is a tree frog that wasn’t so lucky this night. A poisonous snake nailed it and in reaction to the bite, the frog swelled up hoping to get loose. The snake though just holds on and waits out the frogs slow death and then consumes it. It was cool! Hopefully this gives you some ideas, solves some flash issues and helps you get out and explore the very cool wild heritage that is around us all!