Flash - Behind the scenes

[wolfie]

Attached are two images showing my basic setup for shooting flowers indoors.

Firstly I must apologise for the poor photo of my setup, but I just could not get the angle right so as to include everything.

For a backdrop I used a cardboard box covered with a white sheet, Illumination was provided by my two Jessops mini slave flashguns.

These you can just see behind the laptop and are placed on the table facing upwards and slightly to the rear of the flower.

I also have my Sigma Super set to slave mounted on a tripod above and behind the flower, the head being angled so as to illuminate the backof the subject.

To trigger these slave I have my Canon twin light macroflash with both heads angled to light the subject, these are operating at 2/3 power, but with the righthand head delivering only 3/4 of the power, lefthand head is firing at full 2/3 power (hope that makes sense)

With the macro flash it's possible to contol the total flash output, but then it's possible to further control the lights on the individual heads as well as the angles. These heads can also be rotated around the axis of the lens.

This is the link to the first upload of "Cherry Blossom" http://www.worldphotographyforum.com...500&ppuser=150.


Harry

[Don Hoey]

Very impressive Harry. An interesting post, thanks.

Don

[Don Hoey]

Just looked again at the control panel on your Canon twin light macroflash.

That unit looks to be VERY impressive.

Don

[Canis Vulpes]

After a quiet period and some one to one tuition from Don I have attempted more flash still life photography.

Using a self standing monopod as a lighting stand with SB-800 and a 38" lastolite reflector/diffuser I created a large light wrapping around the subject. The photo was created in a very short period of time taking longer to setup the kit and composition than getting lighting right. Photo shows exactly how lighting as setup.

Photo can be seen in gallery... http://www.worldphotographyforum.com...php?photo=5631

[Don Hoey]

Stephen,

All the kit being used here. ....... Do I see another new toy.

A really good idea using the monopod as a light stand. The picture is a good example of flash fall off without using black flags. Exposure is spot on as I can see the pattern in the egg shells.

I notice you used the 28 - 70 and ended up at 52mm. Also f13 ..... seen that number before ..... thats what I set when I use the Multiblitz at a similar distance. Nice soft light through the Lastolite. So now you have the equivalent of my big softbox for a lot less.

Don

[Don Hoey]

The idea for the shot came from a couple of PM's with Nikon Foxy Bob.
The only flowers we have are on one fushia plant so that became the subject choice. The camera ... well thats the down to doing something a bit different. Lighting was by a single diffused flash, triggered by the SB80 on a remote cord and is just visible under the table. Exposure and focussing were manual.
I remember trying something similar in my days of film and I was able to make a print from 2 negatives. Achieving accurate registry in the enlarger was the biggest problem so it was not that easy. Not a problem with digital as long as register was maintained at the time of shooting.

The camera with the prism attached was set up as in the attached pic. Once F3 focus on the flower was achieved the prism was removed, taking care not to move the F3. To enable viewing of large images to check for effect, the D100 was controlled by a laptop. Two images are attached, one to show the effect of the focussing screen image through using a single exposure for camera and flower, and a seperate one concentrating on the focussing screen, where the light fall off on the camera, from the flash, was controlled by black flags. Camera position was quite critical to stop the blackout effect from the split image of the focussing screen. ( focussing aid before the days of A/F )

Frustations, there were some. Due to seriously limited space a knock of the tripod meant resetting and re shooting both sets to maintain register. This happened as I moved the flash between the two exposures. Camera battery running out of power then finding after recharging that the flower had moved - see BS 3.

Despite thoroughly cleaning the camera before starting, dust specks miraculously appeared and were made very obvious with flash. More time was spent cloning these out than combining the images.

The final image is also attached to save returning to the gallery.

Don

[Don Hoey]

Following two previous gallery submissions I had a brief from Nikon Foxy Bob, to take a picture of the F3 against a black background.

There were two considerations for lighting this. I had to seperate the black camera from the black background, and put life into the lens.

To seperate the camera from the background I used a diffused flash top light. Reflectors were used to bounce light back into critical areas. A large lastolite reflector, with a flash fired from behind it provided light for the lens. The colour you see is from the lens coating.

The biggest single problem I had was manually focussing the 28-105 lens on the D100, as I wear glasses and the big softbox limited the light from the overhead striplights. I could not reach the main lightswitch through the tangle of light stands and tripods, as can be seen in the behind the scenes picture so had to rely on the two above my lathe which is behind the D100. Once again I used a laptop to control the camera and check the effect of adding each reflector in turn.

Pictures attached.
1) Behind the scenes view.
2) The areas affected by each reflector.
3) The final image.

Don

[yelvertoft]

Blimey Don, that looks like quite a task! What it must be to be retired. Lovely soft lit end result. Thanks for the tops, I'll have a go at a similar shot of my K1000 when I have the time.

[yelvertoft]

Don, you'll be the death of me. I've just spent an hour experimenting with different angles, bits of white paper, bits of tin-foil, bits of kitchen-roll, and I still can't get rid of the shadows in the corners!

Getting tired and frustrated now. You'll have to make do with the best effort so far, which I'm not particularly happy with.

[Leif]

I know this thread is about flash, and there have been some lovely examples, but I thought it would be worth mentioning another technique. Being a cheapskate at heart, I thought I could use Quartz Halogen lights to take photographs of items I wanted to sell. Each light cost a mere £5 from Asda so an experiment would not break the bank. Attached are two example images of a lens I subsequently sold on ebay. I used a couple of Lastolite diffusers to soften the light from the lamps and some reflectors to lighten shadows. The main problem I had was the background, as I only had A4 sheets of white paper. Of course the great advantage is that you can see the modelling, and adjust to suit. The disadvantage is that you have to do the work in a room shielded from all other sources of light.

Leif