Flash Capture

As a rule I rarely use the Flash . Not sure why I don't possibly because I capture nature , a flash will probably distress them . On this occasion the Swan was under the bridge and the light was pretty poor
 So I used the Flash and was pleasantly surprised with the result . The Flash was set to fire at the end of the exposure or Rear Flash I believe its called in the settings of my camera . REAR (bolt and REAR icon)

Normally the flash goes off the instant the shutter opens. With long exposures and blurred ghost images you ordinarily get the ghost streaming out in front of the subject. Think about it: if a car is driving, the flash goers off and freezes it, then the car moves forward. You'll have a ghost image ahead of the car, which usually looks stupid.

Select REAR mode to have the flash go off instead when the shutter closes. Now you'll have motion blurring behind the frozen flash image.

REAR doesn't do anything noticeably different with short exposures

I used this mode to cause the Swan as little stress as possible. The effect of the light on the bird is quite striking .Setup Nikon D7000 , Nikon 55-200 mm , F5 , 1/80 , 130 mm , ISO 500 .