Photographing erratically flying bats at night seems like an impossible task, but with sophisticated electronics it's quite possible. In the dry Sonoran desert of Arizona, bats have to drink. A man-made pond draws them to the water supply, and the camera is prefocused on an invisible electric beam that spans the pond. When a bat is spotted near the water, the shutter of the camera is opened in the dark. When the bat breaks the beam, the flash is triggered. Note that the shutter is already open. This is important because the bats are moving so fast that if the mechanics of the camera were triggered by the broken beam and then the flash was fired once the shutter was fully open, the bat would be out of the frame. That's how fast they are moving. The exposure is tested before the photography begins. I used f/11 and 320 ISO. I have decided to conduct a workshop for this kind of photography -- plus hummingbirds, owls, other exotic birds and reptiles -- near Tuscon, Arizona in September, 2018. It's amazing what kind of images we can take now due to technology. Fascinating insights into nature that we can never see with our eyes are revealed.
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