So tonight my dog was freaking out, barking his head off. This is not unusual as the raccoons often get in the trash. I went our with my speed light and my 70-300 f/2.8 lens and this was the only picture I could get. I messed around with opening up the aperture and reducing the shutter. Finally it somehow slipped onto an auto night portrait scene and I got this. Settings were 82mm f/4 1/1but I was unable to get off another shot....help???? I feel like I have just enough knowledge to really screw the shot up!! :( Any helpful tips would be appreciated!
Wish I could help but I need tons more experience with my speed light. I can tell you that practice may not make perfect but really helps improve. Let me call over a couple of people who may be willing to help more than me. @vignouse, @taffy and @etchasketch1 hope one of you can help my fellow Mainer with her problem. The first two are mentors and the third takes good night shots. So I am sure one will stop by and help. The people on this site are amazing.
The first point that I noted is the shutter speed of 1 second - this is more of a fill-flash setting than a primary flash setting; it is useful when you want to expose the background in a shot which is out of reach of the flash. The slight fuzziness we're seeing here is, I think, the effects of camera shake - at ISO 800 there was probably just enough ambient light to record rhe image. For this shot, I would have set the camera on manual at 1/125 sec and f/4 would seem fine. That should have got you a sharp image.
The Racoons' eyes are the animal equivalent of human red-eye - I believe some PP programs have an 'animal-eye' correction - try Picasa - otherwise you could correct it manually.
Finally, the camera's refusal to take a second shot was probably because it was not focussed. At night the focus assist illumination needs to be active... but it could, of course, scare your subject off.
Without actually being there this is all I have to offer... hope it helps.
Great capture! I have never done any nighttime photos for the animals. I am glad that you asked for recommendations and I could also learn from your post :-) thank you
@vignouse Thank you for helping. I think the focus assist illumination was the missing piece. My camera just could not focus because it was so dark! I will open up my trusty manual and figure out how to use the focus assist Illumination. As for the fuzziness...it was totally camera shake and the "red eye" was the only way I could see them in the dark!! :)
I actually like this capture, the red-eyed racoon looks a bit monster-like :)
Very interesting comments too, maybe if you had tried manual focus? Though I assume it would be too dark to see anything to focus to. Reminds me that I should really refresh my memory on how to turn back on focus assist illumination, I turned it off some weeks ago and I am not sure I'm able to find it again if I need it :)
@vignouse@dianen Ah Richard you are wonderful as ever offering up help. Diane my photography has improved greatly because of Richards help. Hope you don't mind what I did to call him over.
August 4th, 2015
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The Racoons' eyes are the animal equivalent of human red-eye - I believe some PP programs have an 'animal-eye' correction - try Picasa - otherwise you could correct it manually.
Finally, the camera's refusal to take a second shot was probably because it was not focussed. At night the focus assist illumination needs to be active... but it could, of course, scare your subject off.
Without actually being there this is all I have to offer... hope it helps.
@joansmor - as requested!
Very interesting comments too, maybe if you had tried manual focus? Though I assume it would be too dark to see anything to focus to. Reminds me that I should really refresh my memory on how to turn back on focus assist illumination, I turned it off some weeks ago and I am not sure I'm able to find it again if I need it :)