Photographing birds with fill-flash

With all the recent gloomy weather I dusted off my flash and spent a day in the hides with one of my guests.

I used to use a better beamer which is attached to the flashgun to narrow the beam and throw it further, now if you use one of these you will know they are quite fiddly with velcro and the likes to attach so I have been looking or an alternative and last year found the MAGMOD MAGBEAM WILDLIFE KIT available on eBay for around £90, pricey but much easier to use.

Most people never give flash a go but you can some very reasonable shots on a gloomy day when a lot of photographers wouldn’t even venture out.

I won’t go into how to use one but do teach this on one of my workshops but as I type we are about to go into another lockdown so will start these again once it’s over.

The trick is not to use too much flash and balance the ambient light (Daylight) with the flash to give it a natural look.

Here are some examples of what you can achieve on a very rainy overcast day using fill-flash.