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One from tonight’s visit to a Little Red Flying Fox colony not far from home.

Photographically, I found this a real challenge – fast movement and nearly no light. The SB800 was really working hard.

BlacknStormy and Damo were there and I expect Narelle’s shots will be a fast improvement on this one. I was only using the kit lens but Rel had her 80-200, which should make a world of difference. Looking forward to your images Rel!

That is amazing. Great stuff Simon

Nice one Simon - worth the trip out

Nice work Simon. I tried a similar shot while we were on holidays at Forster. There was the biggest flying fox colony I've ever seen flying every evening from Cape Hawke to the north of Forster. None of my attempts were as succesful as yours. I'd be very happy with this given the challenges presented by the low light and fast(ish) moving bats. Well done.

Awesome sight. You've done very well indeed to get the shot this good.

Yeah great shot Manta in difficult conditions. Look forward to seeing some more bat shots soon!

Owen.

Simon, i like this shot the way it is i think it looks good and using what light there was is enough to see the subjects. Well done mate.

Wow - I'm amazed at the positive responses. I really thought this shot was rubbish. Here's another one I wasn't going to keep...
Composition-wise it's all over the shop and there's some flare in the top centre, probably a reflection off some falling poop - I copped two good splats which I reckon is pretty good going considering the numbers!

Fixed the link on the second photo..

Hope you:
- took plenty of lens tissues
- kept your mouth closed
Nice shots

Next time I'll wear these:

Nice shots Simon - a very difficult scene to capture well...

What shutter speed / ISO did you use?

Am I mistaken or were you using front-curtain flash sync?

leek wrote:Nice shots Simon - a very difficult scene to capture well...

What shutter speed / ISO did you use?

Thanks John. Both were shot at 1/60 f4.5, ISO200, AF-C, TTL flash. PP included pushing the exposure +1.45 in the first shot, +1.15 in the second.

DaveB wrote:Am I mistaken or were you using front-curtain flash sync?

Right you are Dave. I'm a real gumby with flash settings - I just left everything on default. I should've upped the power at least! Excuse the dumb question but what effect would rear synch have had on the image? I can see the ghosting/almost shadow effect caused by the flash setting I used; very evident in the second shot . Would rear synch have negated or altered this???

Simon,

I quite like the effect you managed on the first shot.
The second doesnt really grab me though.

A thought about getting more light:
suppose you harnassed the power of Nikons CLS and used Rels flash slaved to your own.

Steve

Manta wrote:Excuse the dumb question but what effect would rear synch have had on the image? I can see the ghosting/almost shadow effect caused by the flash setting I used; very evident in the second shot . Would rear synch have negated or altered this???

You can see the flash has fired and then the bats have moved forward in their flight and caused a dark silhouette against the sky.
With rear sync you would get the dark edges "behind" the movement instead of "in front" of it.

Steve: Good idea about linking the flashes. Neither of us thought of that but it's definintely something we'll try next time.

DaveB: Thanks - now I remember!

ABG wrote:Nice work Simon. I tried a similar shot while we were on holidays at Forster. There was the biggest flying fox colony I've ever seen flying every evening from Cape Hawke to the north of Forster. None of my attempts were as succesful as yours. I'd be very happy with this given the challenges presented by the low light and fast(ish) moving bats. Well done.

Sadly when I was up there in January there had been mass deaths of the flying foxes (I'm not sure how or why, I wasn't listening closely) but I found a few dead ones on the ground at our picnic area.

The worst part of this scenario lies in the fact that the local media has made a lot of this particular colony in that they are infrequent visitors here, not seen for a few years before this latest visit.

The resutlant surge in 'outsiders' coming for a look has angered the local human residents who are abusive, aggressive and extremely annoyed with the attention brought about by the publicity, apart from the fact that they all seem to hate the bats as well.

I would not be surprised if some of them, given the sort of mentality displayed when we were there last night, results in damage being done to the roosting trees or some harm being done to the bats themselves.

I don't know how it will pan out but I hope the colony packs its bags soon and finds a friendlier community to live within.