Flash instead of IS? (1 Viewer)

Hope it's not a silly question but actually I don't have any experience in using flashs:

When taking hand held bird photos in low light and without IS (at 200-500mm), would a flash (eTTL perhaps in combination with a flash extender) be sufficient for getting faster shutter speeds?

Are there any other special requirements for using a flash in bird photography (especially BIF)?

Even with an extender the flash isn't going to reach very far. If you're having to shoot at 400mm then it'll probably not do a lot.

IS and flash will solve different problems.

IS will not compensate for subject movement. With slow shutter speeds you will get motion blur if the subject moves during exposure.

Depending on camera models shutter speed in flash mode will be somewhere between 1/60s and 1/250s. Still not sufficient exposure times by themselves to freeze movement or user shake with long lenses. However, since the flash delivers only a light burst shorter than 1/10000 s this will freeze any movement if ambient light is low enough. Otherwise there will be likely some gosting, an unsharp, underexposed faint outline image surrounding the hopefully correctly exposed one.

As mentioned in the previous response flash set-ups even with powerfull flash units will have an effective range limit of a few meters, even with flash extenders (i.e. tele lens for the flash) the working range is still pretty limited.

One way to deal with these limitations is a remotely controlled flash placed close to the subject. Depending on the location (feeder, roost...) this may work, but one should always consider the possible effect of a light flash on the animal.

Ulli

I occasionally use a better beamer type flash extender with a 400mm lens but only when I really have to. It's not that easy to get natural looking results with flash as the feathers reflect light as if they were mirrors. For my use it's better suited to fill-in rather than relying on it for sole source of light. I always dial in around -1.00 EV which gives better results.

With the eTTL you can get a higher shutter speed but of course the higher you go the lower the flash to subject distance. Useful shutter speed at around 1/400 for hand held really reduces the working distance. I've not tried it for birds in flight myself.