macro photography and flash

Macro photography can be pretty light consuming. You want to maximize depth of field, so you close your aperture to f/11, or even smaller. To get to greater magnifications you might use extension tubes, reducing the light reaching your sensor as well. Or to get rid of the harsh shadows you put a scrim over your working area, etc. To put it shortly, some extra light would be nice.

The first time I encountered this, I was still photographing with a point and shoot. But firing the flash was no option, as I found out that the lens barrel was blocking most of the light. Unfortunately most of the on camera flashes will not be useful for macro photography because of this.

However, there’s also external flashes. I have always been very enthusiastic about external flashes, and the moment I started with macro photography I have been using them. Basically you can use them in two ways, on your hot shoe (on-camera) or external. First I will cover on-camera use.

On-camera use of our flashes is the easiest way of using them. If you use modern lenses and flashes they even communicate to each other, and make a good exposure. But even without this auto-exposure you are very well able to make good photographs. Typically the distance to your lens doesn’t change much, as you want to keep a certain magnification. So the area between the subject and your flash doesn’t change.

A commonly heard complaint about flashes is that they produce hard ugly light. First of all hard light can be really beautiful (but that will be another post in the future), but the light coming from your flash actually is really soft. Your subject matter is really small compared to your flash head, and your flash will be close to your subject, so the light from your flash is still able to wrap around your subject. I took this photo with my SB-24 mounted on my camera, with a diffuser dome.

As you can see, it doesn’t look like your typical hot shoe mounted flash picture, as the light is quite soft.

However, there are disadvantages, as your distance from flash to subject is very small, you will get fast fall-off. If your exposure mainly depends on the flash output, you will get dark backgrounds. You could search for backgrounds which are also quite close to your subject, which will catch more light. Don’t be afraid of distracting backgrounds, as they will be out of focus anyway, due to the small DoF.

Or you could make use of your ambient light. The photo shown above is taken 1 o’clock, in the harsh sun. Even though my flash is my main light, the sun increased the exposure on my background. (That’s why I like to do macro photography, since I’m able to control my exposures anyway, I can do it at any time of the day)

Off camera flash is another option. It can create more dramatic light, and I like it better than on-camera flash. However, compared to on-camera flash, you are less mobile, since you also have to move your light. Besides that, if your subject moves, your flash exposure will change as well. This can be especially difficult since most of us will be using non-TTL triggers / cords / non-TTL flashes. I just hope for the best, and try to move my flash along with my camera, and usually I’ll be all right. Don’t get discouraged because you blow a few exposures, because after some practise you will remember to move your flash.

Again, you don’t have to diffuse the light that much, although I like to diffuse it more. Soft light is more forgiving, and also will create less harsh shadows. (Again, the sun can be your friend and can fill up the shadows) As I use extension tubes, most of my pictures mainly depend on flash for their exposures. This can result in very dark shadows on the other side of your subject. (As you can see in the photo below) Normally an envelope put over the head of the flash is enough, providing very soft light.

So basically, if you want to be very mobile, or your subject moves a lot, mounting the flash on your camera can be a good option. But I prefer to fire my flash from a slight angle to my subjects, so when I can, I will use my flash off-camera. 

my thought process for this photograph

First I wanted to take a normal photograph of a mushroom nearby, but the flies kept bugging me. Then this little shroom caught my attention because flies were constantly sitting on it. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do and decided to come back to this mushroom since it was near the entrance of the forest.

After 2 hours I came back and the sun was already setting and I cursed myself for being too lazy to figure out what I actually wanted. Than I remembered that I also brought a flash and triggers just in case I might run out of light.

I tried a test shot and realized that the light was too hard for this photograph, good thing I always keep an envelope in my bag as a reflector for macro photography. (if you take an occasional macro photo, put an envelope in your bag the next time you go out. They do not take up any space, but can save you, just like it did for this photo)

Instead of using the envelope as a reflector I pulled it over my flash to soften the light. I put the flash at a 90 degree angle from the camera and started to take some photographs. Than I accidently pointed my camera a bit at the flash and noticed the flare.

I thought it would be cool to make a dramatic photo with flare of a fly looking into the camera. I increased my shutter speed to decrease my ambient exposure to make the photo more dramatic and pointed my camera near the flash with envelope.

Unfortunately the flies would not look into my camera, but when I reviewed my shots on the computer I saw this one looking at the flare.

Thanks for reading,

Koen

First impression metz 36 AF-5

I recently ordered this flash, and I haven’t been able to give it a full review yet, but I will update the review in another article [UPDATE: I HAVE POSTED MY FULL REVIEW UNDERNEATH THIS ARTICLE]. The first thing I noticed when I got the package was that it was so small. There comes a manual with the flash but you will not find any useful information in it. It states that you shouldn’t shortcut it and the usual stuff but not how things work.

Luckily this flash is very easy to use. It only has two switches: on/off and test. You control the flash via your camera, over/underexposure and what mode you use. If there is such a thing as a plug and play flash, this one qualifies as one. And it does a good job, I seriously did not have a bad exposure due to the flash. (of course I did have some bad exposure because of me).

The i-TTL of Nikon does a good job, and most important it plays nice with the flash. First I was skeptical about a third party flash, but I got to say it works really well.

The flash also has a zoom-function. But this is not automatic. You have to do this yourself. On one hand this is a bad thing, you tend to forget about it. I have forgot about it a few times, and messing up my exposure because of that. But it also gives you a lot of freedom, and it’s really easy to use. You have to pull the head out, it works a bit like a push-pull zoom. For a manual zoom, I like the system, it just feels right.

Now the weird things. It doesn’t support manual exposure. You can not fire it without i-TTL. The first thing I realized was that this means it won’t play nice with my manual focus lenses. This really disappointed me because in the description in clearly stated that it would be able to do so (on the site of the store, not on the box. Shame on you store!). Therefore I have serious doubts about sending it back. [I got my money back and my flash as well, because the advert said I could fire this flash manually. So obviously I am very satisfied with the service of this store.)

This also means that this flash is not suited for off camera use. I’ve read somewhere on the internet that it won’t even fire at full power when you try to trigger it off-camera, say with using cactus triggers. [update: it does on mine, on some others it doesn't]

So if you’re looking for a “plug and play flash” this flash is a good one. You turn it on, and you have no other fancy things. Only the things you can dial in in the camera. But if you’re looking for a flash which allows you to use it off camera, or with MF lenses this lens is a no-no.

Updated review

As you’ve probably read above I used to be fairly positive about this flash. And to be honest, it does what it’s supposed to do. It takes well exposed photographs, and I never had a miscommunication issue with the camera.

But now a few downsides:

• It doesn’t swivel: this is a huge downside. Seriously, when I bounce a flash I always look if the walls aren’t colored because light coming from the side tends to be more pleasing than from directly above. When you don’t have a lot of space between you and your subject you will create raccoon-eyes with your ceiling-bounced flash.
• It only fires on full power when fired off-camera. And I heard stories it won’t fire at all. Personally I think it’s caused by the brand your flash is made for, I guess this flash works if it has a Nikon foot but I have no real evidence for this. And to be honest, it only fires at full power so why bother?.
• It isn’t very powerful. To be honest it might not be a fair comparison because my other flashes are SB-24’s which used to be the flagship of Nikon a long time ago, so they are professionally powered. But I bought these flashes for less than half the money of this Metz! They do swivel, have manual control, and have more power.

Updated conclusion:

If you don’t want any hassle this flash might be for you. It exposes well, and it’s cheap. But if you want to use this for “advanced” (like bouncing of walls :P) techniques, then move on.