Plainswanderer

Very cool post, Mike. Great capture!

Mike, this is what bird photography is all about. Wonderful dual flash work. Great comp and I love the setting. An awesome looking bird too.

Whoa - too cool!

Amazing. This is great and the result of some seriously hard work. I applaud you! Thanks for sharing this with us.

Wonderful! Thanks for posting images of both the male and the female since these are birds most of us will never see.

O.K. Mike...........you've officially gone onto my shi* list

Wonderful photo of an amazing species.

Way to go Mike...

Great image of a cool looking little bird. Great eye on this bird

Mike,

Now I've seen one. Great capture. Thanks for posting the pretty lady as well.

Jim

Excellent in every way!!

You are now much hated Mike. For those unfamiliar with this bird, its darn near impossible to see/find, requiring one to go out late at night (like 11pm-3am time frames) in the middle of Australia. Just the search itself is hard work, and the probability of finding them isn't exactly great. For any hardcore lister, this is one of the "mega" species that is at or near the top of most everyones list along with stuff like Masked Finfoot and Gurney's Pitta (if we are talking SE Asia/Pacific species)

Ny favorite type of bird image- great bird balnced with great environment.

Outstanding, Mike. What copyright?

Well done, Mike Thanks for posting both!

Wonderful looking bird and great flash work as well, very nice indeed!!
Congrats!!

Mike, Totally incredible!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mike,

Both images are beautiful and worth whatever superhuman efforts were put forth. The male is great with nice habitat and the flash use masterfull. But the female, oh what a stunning lady.

Please, if you would, elaborate on the dual flash set up. Are both flashes mounted to the camera some way or did you have an assistant holding one? Are both flashes set to full flash or is one set to a lower output than the other?

Thank you in advance Mike and thanks for sharing these beautiful birds that most of us will never see.

Again, Great Job!

BZ

Brian L. Zwiebel wrote:Mike,

...Please, if you would, elaborate on the dual flash set up. Are both flashes mounted to the camera some way or did you have an assistant holding one? Are both flashes set to full flash or is one set to a lower output than the other?

Hi Brian,

I'd originally intended to have both flashes off-camera, one to the side and the other off to the other side and higher. But when this night came around, I found I was missing one of my cables/connectors, and so wound up having to mount one flash in the hot shoe and the other cabled to the front of the body. I think I had both flashes set to the same power, probably full but I don't remember. My "assistant" held the upper flash for me a little farther from the subject than my camera-mounted one.

My biggest problem through all of this was getting both flashes to fire. I've always used a cable setup for multi-flashing, and it's always been a tenuous affair. I think much of the problem is that the camera only puts out a limited strength signal to fire the flashes, and the more flashes there are, the more the signal gets split, until it becomes so weak that some/all flashes don't fire. To make matters worse, the problem can be intermittent, so the test fire can work, and then when doing the actual photography they can fail, and when I'm behind the camera I can't easily detect that. I've since left the stone age and am using what should be more reliable cordless flash control like the rest of the world, but so far haven't used the new system; this summer in the Sierras should be some chances.