FLASHES

If the bird is on a branch and the background is 30 feet away, then the background will be nearly black. This effect is more pronounced when you are photographing something close than when it is far away (because light has already fallen off quite a bit if the subject is far away to begin with).

The fact remains that there are times in which you either use flash and get some sort of photo, or you get nothing at all. This is particularly true with wildlife photography at night. The chance of setting up a tripod and keeping the animal still for 5+ seconds to do a long exposure (see Night Photography) is slim to none.

The above photo of a malachite kingfisher is a great example of all we have talked about so far. First, you can see that the light falls off dramatically, such that the background is very, very dark. In the case of this photo, it actually works quite well with the brilliant blue juxtaposed with the dark black background. So, the effects of light drop off are not always an entirely bad thing.