Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
i got so many thank you's for the histogram lesson i thought i would do a few more to help the beginners. please post some as well if your good at stuff. we all want to learn.
learning to take control of the scene is an important part of photography.
most of the photos done by beginners that we see are like a cork floating in water. whereever the photo floats to become that day is where it ends up.
usually if its a nice sunny day it ends up ending poorly as your subject to the luck of the lighting at the scene . why ? because there is no setting on your camera that can capture the range from dark to light without crushing or blowing out details and colors unless the light that day cooperates..
if you havent seen the thread i put together on using a histogram get that under control first.
a camera left on program setting or automatic will strive to average everything it exposes to a middle gray color. it will automatically take whites and darken thenm to ligh gray.
look at shots beginners take of snow, its gray.
blacks will be rendered dark gray.
because of that the camera will never ever by itself capture the scene you see.
the first thing we want to do is stop the camera doing that, we want to control our own exposures.
that next thing we want to do is control the sun.
we control the sun by bringing our flash and by overiding the cameras exoposure system , that way we can stop the sun from being the dominant light and being held captive to it.
so lets put the cameras in manual and put our external flashes on the camera and lets start controlling our photos the way we want them
Last edited by mathjak107; 04-28-2012 at 03:42 AM..
im not familiar with cannons system so im going to refer to nikons system which i know, you cannon users can tell us if in ttl the camera maintains 2 seperate systems or is more like nikons TTL-BL mode which communicates with each other.
nikon TTL- no talking between camera and flash
TTL-BL lots of talking and inter acting.
we want TTL mode on the flash- no talking.
there are two seperate exposure systems in ttl mode ,your camera and your flash. in nikon ttl mode they dont talk much to each other. you have 2 seperate exposure systems that can be set independently, the camera and the flash.
you really need a seperate flash as the one on camera will not let you take control . the built in pop up one is TTL-BL only and wont let you really break things up into 2 seperate exposure systems.
the external flashes have choices so you can select TTL ot TTL-FP ,just dont pick TTL-BL
the problem with the one built in to your camera is that one talks to much and does talk to the camera. so you really do need a good seperate flash unit. we dont want the camera and flash talking much in our macro work.
the flash and the camera really act as 2 seperate systems each capable of exposing a photo on its own.
so lets see how we get rid of the sun and control our own light even in broad daylight.
put the camera in manual mode.
set iso to 400
put the flash on the camera but leave the flash off for now.
set your speed around 1/160 to 1/200
set your aperture anywhere from f/16 to f/25 or higher .
get close to your flower and click off a shot. get the background as dark or as light as you like by adjusting the aperture. we are only setting the look of the background now, the flash once we turn it on will control the flower exposure.
you can get the background setting for your flower as bright as you like or as dark as you like, even pure black at this point just by working the aperture.
we are using the camera to set the exposure for the background for our flower.
at this point with the flash off we can barely see our subject at all or perhaps not at all if you want a black background for your flower.
our goal is to have the camera expose the background the way we want and the flash will control the exposure on the subject seperatly.
your camera if left in the auto or program mode can never ever achieve this seperation of the two.
Last edited by mathjak107; 04-28-2012 at 05:02 AM..
we are now using the camera to set exposure for the background and we will now see how to make our flash the dominant source of light for the subject and not the sun .
turn the flash on.
we will now use the flash to set exposure for our subject.
on the back of your flash turn it down to -1.
take a test shot.... if the subject flower on the histogram is blowing out make the aperture smaller on the camera.
if the subject is to dark open the aperture wider.
once you get the subject in a good exposure range you can play with the setting on the back of the flash to walk in the exposure and look just to where you want it.
the flash is also so fast it can be 10x the speed of your camera and now has the benefit of stopping action.
catching bugs in flight or blowing flowers is childs play with the flash being the dominant light.
go try it and report back.
i bet you will all be surprised how easy it is to control the scene now for your flower and bug shooting.
heres a few examples of taking control, backgrounds are whatever we felt we wanted to convey. we controlled things not the sun or lighting that day.
each one had the concious decision in advance of what we wanted.
many times we will take the same shot with all different backgrounds and keep them all,each one having its own unique different look.
the red flowers are the hardest to capture as they will blowout and look like featureless tomato skins well before the other colors.
thats why learning to use your histogram is key to getting great flower shots.
using histograms and flash can produce spectacular results for beginners . those that took the time to learn almost like magic had huge leaps in their photography skills.
even those who fought against learning because it seemed complex and it was easier to use the excuse they want everything natural in camera realized it just isnt going to happen for them unless they got the basic skills down.
the backrounds below range from black to as bright as the subject.
Last edited by mathjak107; 04-28-2012 at 04:24 AM..
flower shots should be simple,clean and with no distractions.
while a painter decides what to paint into the scene a photographer has to decide what to eliminate .
if its not adding to the scene its hurting it.
get rid of limbs,twigs, to many subjects or focal points. control the cropping and dodging and burning in post processing so you can control the viewers eye.
part of your post processing should be locally brightning and darkening corners and objects further controlling what the viewer focus's on..
those that talk about how they dont want to use post processing can never guide the viewers eye to just where it should go as thats part of the total process of finishing our photos and taking them from snap shots to beautiful photographs.
use manual focus on your camera too. you control what parts are sharp ,how much depth of field and exactly where you want the viewers eye to go. only you can make that decision in macro as the distance from being in focus and being soft and out of focus can be fractions of an inch.
im controlling how much is in focus
hope this helps you ..
Last edited by mathjak107; 04-28-2012 at 05:09 AM..
regular external flash is all i use. i use a nikon sb-900 and marilyn an sb800.
i find while a ring flash lights evenly its to flat and boring for my taste
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
