I had a couple of folks ask why I’m using flash when photographing birds in snow. The reason has to do with the same reason anytime you need to pull out flash, light. In this case, it’s the quality of the color of light that is most important to me. The bottom photo was taken with no flash. Notice not only the down nature of the light, but the lack of life to the light? The perch the female White-headed Woodpecker is a stick I’ve screwed to the railing of our deck. Above her is the suet she came in for and she’s waiting in line to get her bite. The dull texture on the perch, the white head and black body all bring us to a dull photo.
The flash is literally in the snow in fact, out the door and right next to the perch. Using the Hexi 24 Speedlight Softbox with the SB-5000 inside, brings a big light just eighteen inches away from the birds. This big light wraps around the bird and if you didn’t have the bottom photo for comparison, the top photo would look just like you would imagine and that’s the point. It’s a very subtle thing and that’s when flash is at its best. One other small technical point, the SB-5000 is talking to the D5 via the WR-R10. I can directly change the exposure comp via the D5 body and in this case, the body was set to -1/3 and the flash was set to -1/3 exp comp. And that’s why and how I did the flash in snow.