"Roger (K8RI)" wrote in message
...

With the digital cameras I've used over the past few years I had a
problem with my cat's eyes always being closed when I used flash. Of
course all of these cameras had the built in flash which was more than
adequate for most shooting. One handy aspect of these is the built in
sensing. When I look at the flash I see a single flash, but the cat
sees two and that is enough for the cat to close his eyes before the
flash goes off to take the photo.

I have one of the old Vivitar power house 285 flash guns and decided
to give it a try on the hot shoe. With this one you do have to
manually set the shutter and aperture but it'll give a good exposure
the length of a basketball court.

Set on reduced power using the settings given for the distance brings
sharp images and no closed eyes with the cats. OTOH you will get a
blink from the focus light if the camera uses one.

Having 2 cats I get to take quite a few cat photos. I certainly turn off
the AF illuminator as this distracts the cats a lot. I find that a very low
level of flash works best ( eg -2.0 EV ), just enough to add sparke to their
eye, but not enough to blind them.

eg http://www.pbase.com/boliston/image/66994129