BIF - Bats in flight! (image heavy - chiroptophobia warning)

[Ralph Harwood]

Here are some photos taked with my full spectrum converted E-420 and an infra red flash in the bat house at chester zoo. Apologies for the noise in some of them, it was a little dark!

1.


2.


3.



4.



5.



6.



and now some sat on the feeder (a little closer so the flash was more effective)

7.



8.



9.



I hope you all enjoyed seeing them as much as I enjoyed taking them!

Cheers,

Ralph

[Floribunda]

Re: BIF - Bats in flight! (image heavy - chiroptophobia warning)

Ralph - I did enjoy seeing these. Wow. I bet you had fun!
No6 is a stunner!

[Ralph Harwood]

Re: BIF - Bats in flight! (image heavy - chiroptophobia warning)

Hi there Floribunda!

I think my favourites are probably number 2 and number 9 at the moment, although I've found another one which has come out well which I'll have to post later. It was great fun, but I think I need a little more BIF practice as I have an aweful lot of empty shots and parts of bats!

Thanks for looking,

Ralph.

[Phill D]

Re: BIF - Bats in flight! (image heavy - chiroptophobia warning)

No 2 for me, but they are all pretty unique really. Can't imagine there are many who could get shots like these. Thanks for posting Ralph.

[StephenL]

Re: BIF - Bats in flight! (image heavy - chiroptophobia warning)

A fascinating set, and well caught in the (dark) circumstances.

[Grumpy Hec]

Re: BIF - Bats in flight! (image heavy - chiroptophobia warning)

Blimey, why don't you pick a more difficult subject. Talk about a challenge.

My hat off to you. A really fascinating set which I really enjoyed.

Thanks for posting.

cheers

Hec

[Ralph Harwood]

Re: BIF - Bats in flight! (image heavy - chiroptophobia warning)

Blimey, why don't you pick a more difficult subject. Talk about a challenge.

My hat off to you. A really fascinating set which I really enjoyed.

Thanks for posting.

cheers

Hec

Hi there Hec!

The challenge was part of the reason, but I have always been fascinated by bats and was constantly disapointed with conventional photos I had taken. And since I had the converted camera, it would be rude not to!

Now I just need to improve my panning skills to get more keepers as only 10 out of the 70 or so taken were any good at all (if noisy!)

Thankyou to everyone else who has had a look / commented,

Cheers,

Ralph.

[Bikie John]

Re: BIF - Bats in flight! (image heavy - chiroptophobia warning)

Fascinating. As others have said, well done for seizing the challenge!

As far as you could tell, were they aware of the IR flash? Is it visible to human eyes? The technique & kit could have all sorts of useful applications.

Ciao ... John

[Zuiko]

Re: BIF - Bats in flight! (image heavy - chiroptophobia warning)

I went in a bat house once and it really is dark - it has to be! It was so dark I didn't even attempt photography, so I really appreciate how amazing these pictures are. Well done Ralph, great pictures!

[Ralph Harwood]

Re: BIF - Bats in flight! (image heavy - chiroptophobia warning)

Hi there John!

The keepers assured me that they couldn't see near IR light - they themselves use red torches to show visitors the bats and they don't seem bothered with that either. My IR flash does give off a little bit of red light when it fires, but the bats didn't seem too interested or disturbed by it.

This technique should work well with lots of other nocturnal animals provided they cannot see into the IR spectrum, however round by me the only nocturnal animals we see are millions of cats!

I don't think you could use it in portraiture however as although your eyes cannot see the flash, you can still get a little "welders flash eye" if you stare into the flash whilst firing it repeatedly to "see how bright the red light leakage is", so I think your models would protest after a while - the bats seemed fine about it as they were a long way away most of the time.

Sneaking it into places where flashes aren't allowed might be possible, but they would probably notice the red light, and you would get some interesting variations in the shades of grey compared to what you would expect from visible light.

Cheers for looking,

Ralph.

[Ralph Harwood]

Re: BIF - Bats in flight! (image heavy - chiroptophobia warning)

Hi there John (Zuiko)!

It was dark in there, which gave me problems in spotting the bats in the first place! I did have an IR illuminator (basically an infra red LED torch) but to see anything I had to use the liveView on the E-420 and it meant that I couldn't get the bats in flight - by the time the mirror had come down and then back up again and the shutter was ready to fire the bats had flown off or gone back to roosting. I just had to do the best I could looking along the top of the lens, with a medium length zoom (70 to 100mm ish) and a good depth of field (f9 to 13) to try and get them in focus!

Thankyou for looking,

Ralph.

[Zuiko]

Re: BIF - Bats in flight! (image heavy - chiroptophobia warning)

Hi there John (Zuiko)!

It was dark in there, which gave me problems in spotting the bats in the first place! I did have an IR illuminator (basically an infra red LED torch) but to see anything I had to use the liveView on the E-420 and it meant that I couldn't get the bats in flight - by the time the mirror had come down and then back up again and the shutter was ready to fire the bats had flown off or gone back to roosting. I just had to do the best I could looking along the top of the lens, with a medium length zoom (70 to 100mm ish) and a good depth of field (f9 to 13) to try and get them in focus!

Thankyou for looking,

Ralph.

Hehe, it's the proverbial black cat in a coal cellar at midnight scenario!

[Ralph Harwood]

Re: BIF - Bats in flight! (image heavy - chiroptophobia warning)

Hehe, it's the proverbial black cat in a coal cellar at midnight scenario!

If the black cat was being swung around someone's head at high speed!

Cheers,

Ralph.

[Zuiko]

Re: BIF - Bats in flight! (image heavy - chiroptophobia warning)

If the black cat was being swung around someone's head at high speed!

Cheers,

Ralph.

I was forgetting that!

[Bikie John]

Re: BIF - Bats in flight! (image heavy - chiroptophobia warning)

Thanks for the explanation Ralph. Very interesting about the bats not seeing into the red.

I wasn't really thinking of portraiture, more trying to get photos out of circumstances similar to yours where it's really dark and flash is discouraged. When I started photographing music gigs, it was in very dark pubs and we were still using film. I toyed with the idea of using Kodak HIE (high-speed infra-red) film and an IR-adapted flash (an Oly T32 with an IR-pass filter on the front) but never really got around to trying it seriously.

One of the documentary photographers, possibly Weegee, did something similar to take photos of people in cinemas etc. without them realising.

Nowadays we have f/2 lenses and ISO 6400, and cheap LED lights mean that most music venues are rather brighter than they were, so it is less of a problem. but it is still fun to speculate.

Ciao ... John