I took photos of him on three nights in a row, and quickly setup to remote flashes on the first night and went to town. I triggered the flashes remotely with the on camera flash on commander mode. I experimented with TTL and manual modes on the flashes and mostly shot in manual mode at outputs of about 1/8th to 1/2 power. It wasn't until the last night that I moved one of the flashes towards the front of the frog. I also tried shooting at the higher power on the flashes and lowering ISO to still get a good exposure, and decent shutter speed and f/stop. I realized if I am providing all the light for the photo, and I am shooting under-powered flashes and higher ISO I am doing something wrong! Why shoot at 1/4 power flash and ISO 400 when I can shoot at 1/1 (full power) flash and ISO 100 and get the same light and exposure?! So I tried some light that. After a while I raised the ISO in favor of wearing down the batteries on the flash unit any more than I already was and I was swapping batteries a lot over the days I shot these.
Some lighting shots. My brother's pond is maybe 12 feet wide and 9 or 10 feet deep. Mostly I had the flashes near eachother and behind the frog on the right and left.
For some I used the on camera flash too as a third light source, it may be the source of the reflection on the frog here
Here's one with the side lighting
And finally here's a 5 minute video of still shots and the audio from the pond and the frog's calls. I didn't take the time to synchronize the images of calls with the sound of calls... The sound is just for that added flavor or feeling of the frog and the pond.
-Jon
Tags: Maine, ME, Pond, Frog, Water, Video, Audio, Flash, Lighting, Nikon, D200, SB-800, CLS, wireless, remote off camera flash.
