I have had this image in my head for quite some time. The first step was to build the stage for our star, “Billy Bullfrog”. A trip to the local swamp with a couple of five-gallon pails was required to collect all of the materials for the set.
Creating the Set for High-Speed Bullfrog Photography
A lovely moss-covered rock would be Billy’s launching pad. When I pre-visualised this image, I thought I wanted a nice green background for the shot (see initial setup shot). But, after a few test images, I quickly realized that Billy would pop off the background much more if it were black, so I switched out the background for a piece of black velvet.
The Technical Setup
With the set built, it was now time to move on to the technical stuff. Once I switched out the background, I probably could have done this with just two flashes, but I kept the four because it made it easier to even out the light. My flashes were Nikon SB-600s. I had them dialled back to 1/16th power for a 1/11,000th of a second burst of light to freeze the action.
For my trigger, I went with the Cognisys Range IR infrared trigger. The beauty of this system is that the transmitter and receiver are one unit. It sends out an infrared beam, and if the beam bounces back to the sensor (off a frog, for instance), it trips the shutter.
Very simple to set up and only one piece of equipment to hide from the camera!
Capturing a Leaping Bullfrog
At this point, I could have plugged the trigger into my camera and begun making pictures. But Cognisys has a high-speed electromagnetic shutter that mounts onto the front of your lens. I wanted to try it out.
The beauty of this shutter is that there is virtually no shutter lag; it fires in less than 6ms! Most cameras have a shutter lag of about 100ms, not a big deal for most types of photography. But as you can imagine, a leaping frog can cover some ground in 100ms!
Of course, I could have framed the shot ahead a bit to account for this, but I liked being able to know EXACTLY where the frog would trip the shutter. With the shutter on the front of my lens, I plug the flashes and the Cognisys Range IR trigger into the shutter so now when the beam is broken it opens the high-speed shutter and fires the flashes.
Next, I open my camera’s shutter using the bulb setting. Now, when the high-speed shutter opens, it allows the light in to make the exposure. Once I get a trip, I close the camera shutter and reset for the next image.
Bring on our star, Billy Bullfrog!
A couple of things I learned here… frogs can be quite stubborn and do not take direction well. They also do not necessarily jump in the direction they are pointed, and they can hold their breath for a very long time! But as usual, persistence and patience won out in the end.
Jumping Bullfrog, Brighton, MI CC
I used an infrared trigger and four high speed flashes to create this image.
A special note of thanks to my son CJ who was a most excellent frog wrangler! I am pretty sure he is going to have warts after this? Oh, wait, that’s Toads. Heeey… Jumping Toad?
CEEE JAAAY! I have an idea…
Good Luck and Good Light!
Steve & Nicole