Flash - Behind the scenes

[Don Hoey]

Having problems with fooling the D100 pre flash. Unless fooled the camera will not fire. I may even have to read the camera manual.

Looking like another ' Blue Peter ' job.

Don

[Don Hoey]

I have to go out food shopping. Morrisons is 12 miles away so it will be a bit before I get back to this.

First sample pic ( full frame ) from D100 using Pop Up Flash, two polystyrene reflectors and a 4 inch square mirror, black card background.

It is a full pop up flash shot with no ambient light influence. Manual 1/160 sec at f9 ISO200.

Excuse dust and other imperfections, I will do a proper job of the whole thing when we get back.

Don

[yelvertoft]

Originally Posted by Don Hoey

I have to go out food shopping. Morrisons is 12 miles away so it will be a bit before I get back to this.

First sample pic ( full frame ) from D100 using Pop Up Flash, two polystyrene reflectors and a 4 inch square mirror, black card background.

It is a full pop up flash shot with no ambient light influence. Manual 1/160 sec at f9 ISO200.

Excuse dust and other imperfections, I will do a proper job of the whole thing when we get back.

Don

For a pop-up, that is mighty impressive Don. Just goes to show that it can be done if you know what you are doing. Any chance of a "behind the scenes" to show the position of the flags and reflectors?

Duncan

[Don Hoey]

After a successful trip to Morrisons - got a 220mm ( just over 8 1/2inch ) plastic salad bowl for the ring light - cost £0:69, I returned to the pop-up flash project.

The essence was to use a 4 inch square mirror to bend the flash beam, and direct it at a large reflective surface and then bounce light from that back at the subject.

Due to the limited power only G/No. 15 this takes a bit more care in setting up than with conventional set up if you are going to manage apertures in the f11 plus range to get reasonable dof. A small mirror is essential.

For this shot I used black card as a background rather than velvet, as it is cheap and easily available, in a wide range of colours from craft/art shops.

The first thing is to set up the subject and taking camera. For this I tried to make it as repeateable by others as possible so used Auto Focus. I initially fell over as camera would not fire - reason is I was just inside focussing range , so check this before going further.

Once the subject and camera are set up then consider placing a reflective white card or such, to reflect the light from the flash to the subject. There is no need to clamp the mirror to a stand. I did it so I could do a behind the scenes shot and it was a total pain when it came to taking the pic itself. Far easier to hold the mirror with one hand and press shutter with the other. The mirror can easily be aimed at the white surface when viewing from behind the pop up.

I did not try this on programmed exposure as just as easy to do it in manual. After a test shot you can see if any reflectors are needed. AP freebees, white card, kitchen roll, in fact anything white will do.

For the record I spent longer cleaning the camera, selecting pose, and setting mirror up on stand for the behnd the scenes shot than taking the pic itself.

So Ollie you can do quite a bit with a pop-up flash. It just requires a bit of thought.

Don

[Don Hoey]

Originally Posted by yelvertoft

Any chance of a "behind the scenes" to show the position of the flags and reflectors?

Duncan

Duncan,

For the Nikkormat shot similar to the F2AS but only 2 polystyrene reflectors - one each side and camera on a bit of card. Its all about increasing the area of the flash hence bounce it via a large white surface, and moving the light away from lens axis to avoid hard shadow.

I will do a graphic tomorrow as I have had my daily ration of image uploads for today.

Don

[Don Hoey]

Originally Posted by yelvertoft

For a pop-up, that is mighty impressive Don. Just goes to show that it can be done if you know what you are doing. Any chance of a "behind the scenes" to show the position of the flags and reflectors?

Duncan

Duncan,

Finally the graphic to explain the logic behind mirror and reflectors when using pop-up flash as in the Nikkormat shot in post # 256.

Don

[Rudra Sen]

Don, it's a fantastic thread you've started.
I didn't know about this till yesterday. Thanks to Duncan for guiding me here.

From your post #17, one observation and a suggestion: To get a proper reflection, a glass is not enough. You get double reflections because of double surface. Glass can be painted matt black to avoid second reflection.

That's exactly what I had done to shoot this BMW 1:18 model.

Mercedes Benz 1:18 model was shot on a black acrylic sheet. Only problem with acrylic is they get scratched very easily.

I haven't kept any shot setup pictures to explain but I'll start a new thread on this with my drawings.

Till such time let me read this thread and learn.

[yelvertoft]

Originally Posted by Rudra Sen

To get a proper reflection, a glass is not enough. You get double reflections because of double surface. Glass can be painted matt black to avoid second reflection.

Rudra,

Did you paint the underside of the glass matt black?

D.

[Don Hoey]

Rudra

I am well pleased you have found the thread. Having seen some of your other flash images, then I feel we have a lot to learn from you. An immediate example is what you have just posted and is something I had not thought about.

This forum was set up by Foxy, as at one stage all the posts were in a single thread see this link http://www.worldphotographyforum.com...ead.php?t=1863

Start as many threads as you wish, do not feel limited to posting in an existing one.

Don

[Rudra Sen]

Originally Posted by yelvertoft

Rudra,

Did you paint the underside of the glass matt black?

D.

Duncan, paint one side (any side) of the glass with matt black paint. I'm sure it's available in any paint shop. Ensure it's matt and there you go.

Originally Posted by Don Hoey

Start as many threads as you wish, do not feel limited to posting in an existing one.

Don

I need to draw some sketches for explanation/diagram before I start a thread. It'll be done soon, I promise.