Wildlife Photo Competition 4 2016 : Entry Number 61

This is probably more complicated to get right than any other wildlife subject. I have chosen your photograph above the other high contenders this round thanks to the technical difficulties involved that you have managed so well. There are i believe more than 1200 different types of bats (!) so i am not going to try to identify the species here, i’ll let you tell us! But we all know how fast they fly, changing direction all the time, their wings flapping at high speed. What i can say is that you have probably spent more than a lot of time and missed more than a lot of shots before mastering this. Your photo is amazing, it is near impossible to see a bat in the dark and get focus right as it speeds along and catches its prey on the water surface, i suppose you have used a laser trap to set off the shutter and flash at this precise moment?… You have caught it face on and dead sharp, your flash is perfectly dosed, the reflection astonishing, the splashes of water, its eyes, the detail. What an achievement, congratulations you win this round.

Rob Palmer Photo taken near Green Valley Arizona. A Pallid Bat getting a drink of water. This was a phototrap setup. Every night during the summer bats swoop down and get a drink of water in this very small pond. A infrared trip was setup crossing the water at a certain point, when the bat came in he tripped the shutter. The shutter was set to 20 seconds and only tripped when a bat came in and triggered two flashes on each side of the pond. I used a Canon 1DX camera, a 300mm 2.8 lens and a tripod. Minimal post processing.