Blinkin' cat!

Ian D J

Ian D J

Michael Fish
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Ian D J
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That's what the cat does whenever I try to take a picture of him using my Nikon D40's built-in flash when he's on the carpet looking all cute with all four legs sticking up in the air.
Whenever I do use the flash, it's as if there's a slight milisecond delay between pressing the shutter button and the moment the shutter opens during the flash. My cat blinks in reaction to the flash and that's when the picture is actually taken (usually at 60th of a sec). End result: the cat has his eyes shut on the picture, as if he's having a nap, even though he was all wide-eyed seconds before.
Like this picture for example:

blinkingcat.jpg


How can I take a picture of my cat still wide-opened indoors? If I disable the flash, the shot comes out blurred due to poor lighting indoors and I can't expect the cat to stay still for the picture! :D And don't ask me to set up lamps and floodlights around him as he'll wonder what I'm up to and be off like a shot!
Or is it a common fault when using built-in flash on cats? Will an add-on flashgun help things?
Would like to hear your advice on this and how you overcome it.:)
 
AndyBorzi said:
Does the camera fire a pre-flash for red-eye reduction? Perhaps it is this?
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Hi Andy. That's a good answer and that had occured to me. The same thing happens on the camera's auto flash as well as the pre-flash. The only other setting is to turn off the flash, by then I have to rely on the ambient light. Anything slower than 10th sec and motion blur becomes evident (my cat does fidget a lot when awake!). :D
 
Ian D J said:
Or is it a common fault when using built-in flash on cats? Will an add-on flashgun help things?
Would like to hear your advice on this and how you overcome it.:)
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Like AndyBorzi, I wondered the same about the red eye pre-flash thing.

Absolutely brand new to add-on flash guns as I acquired mine very recently and have only used it in auto mode so far for a couple of dozen test shots but it does seem to make a difference. It came with an Omnibounce diffuser. My test subject is a very patient ginger dog though who is in "giving me his best side pose" mode the minute he sees the camera, not a cat.

When I was just using the integral pop-up, I found that putting a tissue or stocking over it as a makeshift diffuser made quite a difference to both animal red eye and blink.

Lovely puss btw :love:
 
Alison said:
Like AndyBorzi, I wondered the same about the red eye pre-flash thing.

Absolutely brand new to add-on flash guns as I acquired mine very recently and have only used it in auto mode so far for a couple of dozen test shots but it does seem to make a difference. It came with an Omnibounce diffuser. My test subject is a very patient ginger dog though who is in "giving me his best side pose" mode the minute he sees the camera, not a cat.

When I was just using the integral pop-up, I found that putting a tissue or stocking over it as a makeshift diffuser made quite a difference to both animal red eye and blink.

Lovely puss btw :love:
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Hi Alison. I'll give that tissue thing a go before I crank up ebay for an add-on flash gun.
Aww, he's a lovely puss (he's called Chad). He does jump at any strange noise or going ons. Hardly surprising as he was rescued from roaming the streets 4 years ago (he was a year old at the time). Had him "done" and now he very rarely set foot outdoors. Very friendly cat, never known him to scratch me or anyone else but is insanely jealous of other cats.
 
Another thing you could do is to tape a piece of white card/white foam to the pop up and bend it so that it bounces the light off the ceiling or wall. (that was off the top of my head an no idea how practical it is!!)

I use a piece of white foam and velcro and wrap it round my 430EX to good effect. 20p foam + about £1 for velcro saved me no end and gives my wife a good laugh everytime I strap the foam to my flash! :LOL:

like this: http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/1427850 except I don't use the black back and staples!
 
Nothing to do with technique Ian, it's just that you've got a black cat. I've tried countless times to get mine, even outdoors. He lies there with wide open eyes, and as soon as he sees me about to press that button he closes his eyes. I'm afraid that black cats are just cantankerous.
 
Dunno bout the D40, but my Sony A100 (and all Sony A100's) have a notorious "lazy eye" effect caused by TTL flash being slightly out of sync. Nicley diffused off camera flash seems to get rid of it.
 
Ian D J said:
Hi Alison. I'll give that tissue thing a go before I crank up ebay for an add-on flash gun.
Aww, he's a lovely puss (he's called Chad). He does jump at any strange noise or going ons. Hardly surprising as he was rescued from roaming the streets 4 years ago (he was a year old at the time). Had him "done" and now he very rarely set foot outdoors. Very friendly cat, never known him to scratch me or anyone else but is insanely jealous of other cats.
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The ginger dog of whom I speak is also a rescued stray. I suspect that he was a very successful and accomplished stray who thoroughly enjoyed his time roaming the streets ;) He's a happy captive though and is a Pets As Therapy dog now and really likes the fact that his "work" involves meeting lots of nice people and being thoroughly spoilt. Cats are welcome as PAT pets too - ask Chad to have a look and see if it might suit him. Ginge can confirm that the perks are very good!

This homespun cigarette pack flash diffuser is something that I intend to try at some point and might just save you from ebay hell and expenditure :)

Re. the tissue thing, I have some test shots somewhere amongst my files. I tried shooting the same subject (restaurant table with salt and pepper pots) using different colours and thicknesses of tissue. The difference between those taken with a single thickness of peach coloured toilet roll, a white napkin and a double red one are really marked. Experiment on Chad's chair to find the desired effect, maybe with a black cushion or something to focus on, then capture him when he settles.
 
If the flash is using ETTL then two bursts are fired but to most people they only see the one. People with faster reactions and animals will blink at the first, which is a low power burst to measure exposure, and have their eyes closed for the second, main, burst which is used for the actual shot.

To see this is action set your flash to 2nd curtain sync, put the camera in manual mode with a long shutter speed, say 1/4" and take a shot. You'll see two quite separate bursts.

Red eye is light hitting the retina (back of the eye) and reduction technique is normally a series of bursts to contract the pupil which are normally enlarged in a dark room.
 
pxl8 is correct. It is your cameras preflash which is causing your cat to blink. Not a lot you can do about it on the D40 (I don't think) with your on camera flash as I don't think you have a Flash Value lock (FV lock) option like on the D80 as explained here: http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d80/users-guide/controls.htm#func

Also if you have the flash in red eye reduction mode this will cause blinking.


Edit: Selecting rear sync in manual mode may stop the pre-flash as explained here: http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d40/users-guide/controls.htm#rearsync

Hope this helps.
 
But then you lose the benefits of iTTL, and have to manually calculate the flash power (which you cannot do with the built in flash anyway). Canon cameras do the same, but it seems slightly more noticeable with Nikon iTTL.
 
iTTL makes me blink, even though Nikon insist it is imperceptible.

On my D300 I can put the on-camera flash into Manual mode. On your D60 (I even downloaded the manual for you!) you can do this in Custom Setting 14 (see page 113 of your manual.) You'll need some practice to nail the correct settings though.
Try:
Manual flash and shutter/aperture
1/60th second shutter speed.
f/8
Flash at 1/2 power

And then you can increase/decrease the flash to make the kitty brighter or darker, and increase/decrease shutter speed to make the background brighter or darker. Magic!
 
Blapto said:
iTTL makes me blink, even though Nikon insist it is imperceptible.
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I am unable to take shots of people not blinking. With Canon ETTL, it's imperceptible, iTTL makes everyone blink.
 
Hi everyone! Just caught up on this thread! Wow, plenty of advice to go on, so I will try and try out the various techniques as pointed out by all of you.
It's just that it would be nice to get a picture of my cat all alert and wide-eyed as he does have this gorgeous big copper coloured eyes, especially when he's on alert mode.
I'll let you know how I get on the next time such an opportunity arises.
Once again, thanks for making the effort to contribute to this thread. :)
 
davekiddle said:
pxl8 is correct. It is your cameras preflash which is causing your cat to blink. Not a lot you can do about it on the D40 (I don't think) with your on camera flash as I don't think you have a Flash Value lock (FV lock) option like on the D80 as explained here: http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d80/users-guide/controls.htm#func

Also if you have the flash in red eye reduction mode this will cause blinking.


Edit: Selecting rear sync in manual mode may stop the pre-flash as explained here: http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d40/users-guide/controls.htm#rearsync

Hope this helps.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that, Dave. I've saved that D40 link, that went a long way in understanding my camera more!
 
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