Red-eyed Treefrog

Here is my comment on a flickr photo of mine. I thought I had at least add some more links, but I obviously did not...
"Flash and frogs are very controversary discussed. On the one hand there is a change in the behaviour of nocturnal (!) tree frogs due to rapid changes in light. This can lead to some kind of photobleaching in the retina parts of the frog's eyes which further leads to a decrease of activity meaning finding prey for example. On the other hand this condition is reversible and afterwards the frog will be fine again. This implicates that flashing does not harm the frog. Yes and no. If you just use one or two flashes and/or from a longer distance I think this would be OK, but if you use it on a regular base and repeatedly and "full load" on the same individual then I think the frog wouldn't like it and you are on the risk to really harm the frog. It may take hours until this frog might be recovered from this multiple and strong changes of illumination. This is mostly referred to nocturnal frogs and other animals. So from a nature photograph aspect I personally do not use flash on nocturnal frogs (anymore! since I spent some hours in the literature) and I am happy with everybody who do not use flash either. But I will not judge anybody who use flash in a reasonable way. The problem is also that in crowed areas a single frog might to have to pose for dozens of photographers, mostly with automatic flash.

In my cases I had used a low-level flash and a fixed paper tissue to reduced the light intensity. I tried to avoid full eye-shots and repeated flash shots on the same poor and frightened little guy. Rainforest photography without flash and/or tripod is almost impossible. And you anyway have a miserable dof..."
https://www.flickr.com/photos/dominikhof...
Here you see the reflection of the flash I used myself previously and also not knowing much about the topic, but I used a paper tissue around the flash to reduce the intensity of the light:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/dominikhof...

Thanks for taking the time to post those links. My guess is that a flash probably won't cause any sort of physical damage to their eyes. Flashes are generally designed to diffuse the light as much as possible to create a more pleasing light. So, while they release a lot of light at once, it's not of extremely high intensity at any one spot, like the sun for instance. But I think the possibility exists for overly stressing them by excessive use of flash. So it's probably best used sparingly.

Another issue is studio photographs of frogs!!
I have added some more links about photographing frogs, mainly from the technical point of view. I thought I would find "my" pages with info about the harming, maybe I have to go deeper...
Not a stupid question, but some stupid answers...:
http://talkto.thefrog.org/index.php?acti...
http://altertranslations.com/aa-photo/ar...
http://www.grahambaileyphotography.com/p...
http://www.mdavid.com.au/photography/fro...
Some infos about flash and scuba diving:
http://www.divernet.com/Photography/7963...

That is awesome information, bayucca. Thanks for such a considered and thought-provoking response. I'll certainly bear that in mind next time I come across my next frog spotting.

There are actually a lot of conflicting reports. "Little" (what and how is little??) flashing does (most probably!!) not harm the frog, but multiple full and direct flash can as many herpetologists confirm harm the frog and make it completely blind, but nobody really knows how much that will need and I think it is not the question of how much but if. As you have these famous frog with many people around and everybody wants to get a picture, amateurs usually with automatic flash, these poor guys will be "blinded" for several minutes to hours or have injured eyes after that. A "single" episode of flash pictures would probably not harm the frog if it is not otherwise stressed and that's in my opinion another key issue. Flash means definitely stress, specially for the nocturnal frogs. Concerning the harming of flash, you have 2 kind of extreme people: Scientists and serious nature photographer which will know a lot of the nature of the frogs and will probably do it carefully and therefore no "risk" for the frogs. The others are the pure amateurs which just would like to got as close as possible to get the best picture, knowing anything about techniques and frogs, doing multiple and straight flashes and at certain spots or in zoos all the day. There always will be controversial opinions about this issues, but since we really do not know it exactly and there are questions about intensity and duration of flash, frog species, location etc. we should keep an eye on it and try to make as less stress as possible for the frogs, so in my eyes: no or only subtle use of flash. In Costa Rica I always was asked not to use flash in frogs.

I was wondering that too. I must have blinded a lot of frogs.

Just curious, why shouldn't one use a flash when photographing frogs?

nice capture !

Thanks, Mona!

Very cute !!! Very nice photo..

Amazing colors!! Great capture!

Thanks! Mine as well!!

My favorite frog ever

Excellent colors

Handsome little fellow!

You can remove it from the mission "El mini-mundo de Costa Rica" wich is for arthropods categry only and add the spotting to this mission http://www.projectnoah.org/missions/8001...

very good - he needs eye-drops!