It may seem counterintuitive to bring a flash into a tropical jungle streaming with hot beams of sunlight, but that’s just what I visited M’Bouzi Island, a small island near Mayotte in the Indian Ocean that serves as a refuge for lemurs.

© Bob Krist

The trees were loaded with these cute little creatures, but they were usually backlit, or sitting in splotchy light or shade. Digital hates splotchy light—there’s just too much dynamic range for the sensor to record.

My gear consisted of a D90 with a 70-300mm VR Nikkor, and a shoe mounted SB800. I had my ISO at 400, but upped it to 800 and then 1200 as the afternoon progressed and light levels dropped.

I wanted the flash to fill in the shadows and add a little sparkle, but not be obvious. Since the lemurs where jumping around a bit, and never stayed put for too long (until later in the afternoon, after they ate their fill of local bananas), I opted for Shutter priority.

© Bob Krist

I set my shutter speed to the highest sync speed the D90 allows, 1/200th of a second. I usually shoot aperture priority, but in this case, if I got into bright light, I didn’t want the shutter speed to go higher than the highest sync speed.

Since I was mixing flash and available light, I backed off on both the flash and available light exposures, settling -1 on my camera for the available light exposure and -1 on the SB 800. In the photo world, two “minus ones equal a zero” that is, a decent exposure.

Mixing a little flash with available light is great anytime you have to shoot critters in trees or on plants or anyplace where the light can be spotty. Experiment to make sure you achieve the right balance and avoid that direct flash look. Thanks to my speedlight, I had a very productive afternoon in the jungle.