Some questions about my macro lighting.

[RRcoleJR]

So I now have a homemade macro lighting set up and I am trying to work out the kinks in it. I am using two small flashes that are GN 20 each. The down side is I can not adjust the power on them. I have the flash diffused but to me it seems like I need to diffuse it even more. Take a look at this picture if you can and please make suggestion on the lighting. The bug has a bunch of shinny parts and I am not sure if it because of the flash being two strong or if he is just a shinny bug. I know the focus is not perfect, it was really windy.

Thanks,
Ronnie

[dlanter]

Ronnie, the first I noticed in this shot is the purple tint on the edge of the leave & the antennae, not sure what that is from though. Yes, the white part of this bug is a little hot, but really the lighting on the rest of the bug and the leave don't look that bad to me.

I noticed that you shot this one at 1/90 second, if you bump that up to about 1/200 I think it would help in a couple of ways. First, it would help freeze the wind motion and result in a little sharper result when handholding the rig. Also, since you said your lights are not adjustable I think a faster shutter speed would result in less light captured & might help tone down the highlights.

Some of our other members here have been able to tame those shiny little critters with their light setup, but I have just about decided that some of them are going to have hot spots no matter what I do with my homemade setup.

[RRcoleJR]

Dan,

Thanks for your comments. I think the tint is coming from the diffuser. Just shot a few test photos at my desk and with them the white had a slight tint to it and without it did not. Still need to work out a few things with this lighting set up but think it will work rather well after I get it all dialed in.

Ronnie

[dlanter]

What are you using for diffusers? Even the guys that have the more expensive macro lights, like the MT-24EX, have to play around with diffusion also.

[RRcoleJR]

This cover that came with my flash units. Fits over the flash kind of like a sock. It appears to be perfectly white. Took a photo of my Copenhagen can and the lettering had a slight purple tint to it when I used the cover and was pure white when I did not. Only looked at them on the camera so may be able to correct it in PP, now I am thinking it is a white balance issue while using them. Going to check that now.

Ronnie

[RRcoleJR]

It was a white balance thing. Here is a fixed photo of the bug. Looks so much better than the first one. In Aperture I had to adjust the tint from something like 37 to -37 and it fixed it. Also moved up the white balance from 4500 to 4700. Guess it has something to do with the diffuser I am using. On my test shots it was the same thing, only adjusted tint from around 2 to -60.

[DigitalScape]

The re-worked image is much better, Ronnie. Lighting for macro images is a key contributor to how well the image turns out. Not being able to adjust the flash power (i.e. duration) can be addressed by moving the light further (or closer) to the subject (the light falls off exponentially as the distance increases).

I do not think changing the shutter speed is not going to help much as the duration of the flash is much less then the shutter speed. Increasing the shutter speed will reduce the amount of ambient light the sensor sees; and it does help "freeze" the subject from minor movement.

[Glassman]

The last image looks great, I may have to look into your setup.

[RRcoleJR]

John,

I can't really move the light farther away. So, going to have to find a better way to diffuse the light and hope that fixes the hot spots I am getting.

[Kenj8246]

Ronnie, the WB adjusted image looks much better to me. John(DigitalScape) hits the mark with his advice. In flash photography, the shutter speed only controls the amount of ambient light in the scene that gets to the sensor. Your flash duration, in effect, becomes the shutter speed, allowing you to freeze a lot of motion but also yielding dark backgrounds when there's nothing close to the subject. Will your lights work with the camera's TTL system? If you can't control the flash power manually, then TTL is your only other option, unless there's something I'm missing.

Give us a shot of your setup and maybe we can make some other suggestions.

[RRcoleJR]

Don't have the time right now but will try to get take a photo of my set up and post it here. Basically it is two little flash adapters stacked on my hot shoe to give me two pc cord outputs. This connects into two semi small flash units with a GU 20 rating each. These are mounted on a bracket on either side of my lens.

My camera knows there is an external flash connected to the camera but says "incompatible flash or flash power is turned off". So it gives me no control over the flash. The flash units also have no control on them to adjust flash power. I manually set the aperture and shutter speed and take the photo.

The set up works rather well. Just the flash seems to be a bit to strong to me. Trying to come up with a way to diffuse the light a little more without moving them farther away. Moving them farther away would make it to large to get into smaller areas.

I never thought about the shutter speed being tied to the length of the flash. I mean, I know this but never stopped to think about it while doing macro. Now that I think about it this could be a problem, along with diffusing the light more.

Maybe I need to give up on my flash idea and save up for a macro flash set up.

Anyone able to give me the pros and cons to the two canon flashes?

Ronnie

[biglonglens]

Nice macro Ronnie. On using non-dedicated flashes, be careful. They could have an adverse effect on digital cameras. A friend of mine buys old Vivitar 283 flashes for macro work because they have a module you can plug in to them to control the output. He tested the voltage they put out first, and found some of the later ones would have probably fried his electronics in his camera, wheras the older ones were fine. Digital cameras are not designed to use old 35mm flashes, but you can if you know how to measure the output compared to the output of a modern flash designed for that camera.

[Kenj8246]

Originally Posted by RRcoleJR

...camera knows there is an external flash connected to the camera but says "incompatible flash or flash power is turned off". So it gives me no control over the flash. The flash units also have no control on them to adjust flash power. I manually set the aperture and shutter speed and take the photo.

Sounds rather hit or miss. Not the best situation.

...Trying to come up with a way to diffuse the light a little more without moving them farther away.

The trick with diffusion is to know when your diffuser has gone past diffusing and is, instead, just blocking light. There are ways to test that.

I'll repeat the advice I think I might've already given: get a secondhand 430EX or 550 or 580EX and fashion a bracket to allow you to get it near the end of the lens. Think that's your best alternative. You can find used 430EX for $150-$200 on the boards.

Anyone able to give me the pros and cons to the two canon flashes?

Ronnie

I have a used 550EX on the way along with the MP-E and hope to be ready to shoot some next weekend. I'll certainly be glad to pass on what I've found out.

[tomhooper]

I'm coming in late on the discussion but if you just need to diffuse the light a little more you can use several layers of waxed paper taped or rubber-banded over your flash head. Use as many layers as you need. The WB adjusted image looks pretty darn good. Maybe a tad blown on the whites but not much. Agree that you might want to up your shutter speed a little. I very rarely if ever shoot macro at less than 1/250.

[RRcoleJR]

Thanks Tom, will have to try the waxed paper.

@Ken. Is not really that hit or miss. Setting the shutter to 1/250 and the aperture at ƒ16 or ƒ22 seems to be just perfect at this distance. Out past the closest focus distance for my lens I have a lot of light fall off and the photos get darker.

If you look at my other post with the flys I used some paper extending off the end of my flash with the flash heads pointing upwards. This caused the light to reflect off the paper and back on to the flys. I think this worked out pretty well. Only problem is it starts getting to long, it sticks out from the front of the lens and gets in the way. So, back to the drawing board.