Finally, heres something completely differentBetter Beamer Flash Extender combined with your wide-angle lens. Why would anyone think of doing such a thing? Wide-angle flash photography accented with a tool designed specifically to extend your flashs range for long lens photography. Thats different. Well, its exactly what you need when youre trying to shoot an ambient light wide-angle image and want to highlight something very small against the background. The picture of the Great Egret standing in the marsh was taken with just such a combo. I set the exposure for the greater portion of the imagethe marsh areaand used the flash to make the bird standout. If I hadn't used a flash, the Great Egret wouldve been gray instead of its bright white. The flash provided just enough umph to illuminate the bird without over brightening any of the surrounding landscape. Using the Better Beamer Flash Extender with your wide-angle zoom is a unique configuration and probably shouldn't be used everyday. However, it sure does open a few possibilities and its another tool in your toolbox.

I think there are tons of useful reasons for electronic flash in nature photography. I'm talking beyond using it to photograph subjects at night in dim light or for filling shadows in intense, harsh light. In this article I talked about four different different occasions where my flash "enhanced" the image with some success. There is controversy surrounding using flash in nature photography. The arguments center around the unnatural look that electronic flashes can create. I, however, think it has a place as much as having a choice of film or using different filters. You can use flash to create an experience that otherwise couldn't have been made. It all comes down to having an idea--vision--and using the tools at your disposal to bring them to reality.