Getting the settings right

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tornado360

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Hi all,

I have just bought a Nikon D3000 and a Jessops 360AFDN flashgun. I am photographing a large piece of fabric 140cm x 120cm, the fabric is stapled in several places to get rid of any creases to a board that I constructed. I first of all took some shots out my back garden with the sun behind me. I then brought the subject (Fabric stapled to a board) in doors, I took some shots of the subject with the flashgun attached. Both in the garden and indoors I used the auto mode of the camera to take these shots as anything other than that is over my head.

As our good sunny weather is very limited I really need to get the photography right indoors. So far I have tried to photograph the subject with the flashgun pointed in different angles and all I seem to get is too much white or flash in one area I found with the flashgun pointing directly onto the ceiling that is the better of the pictures.

Could anyone tell me how and what setting on my Nikon D3000 I would need to apply in order to get a crisp, sharp and exact colour photo of the subject indoors?
 
"Could anyone tell me how and what setting on my Nikon D3000 I would need to apply in order to get a crisp, sharp and exact colour photo of the subject indoors? "

Tornado, you really need experience in several areas to achieve this I'm afraid.
 
The crucial thing is the fact that you are using just one flashgun - fall off with bounce flash and hot spots with direct flash will always be a problem with just one head. Beg, steal or borrow another identical 360AFDN flash, place both on stands, preferably with brolly reflectors equidistant from the centre of your subject (fabric) level with the centre of the subject and pointing at a 45 degree angle to the subject. Set both flashguns to manual full power and using a flash extension fire the trigger flash so that the second flash fires through the slave sensor. This will eliminate fall off and hotspots, or at least minimise it.

Jim
 
The good thing about the 360AFD flashes is that they are cheap, relatively powerful and can be triggered wirelessly in slave mode. I would recommend getting another one at least, but if you can get another two then you'll be laughing. Mount the flashes on light stands if you can get them, or some other kind of rigging if you can. Use one as fill, one as key and the last one use to blow out the white background. You can reduce the power down to 1/16, so there is some decent degree of flexibility, plus if you work out the light falloff you can get the exact effects you are looking for.

You'll want to trigger everything from a single flash shot at low power from your camera.
 
Some more information about the fabric you're shooting and what the photo would be used for will help with more specific advice. If it's a relatively plain fabric there may be no reason to shoot the full 140x120 and you can get away with lighting a smaller area for example.
 
If you can post a pic of the setup including the camera (with another camera obviously!) and then show a sample shot of how the image comes out with that exact setup, I think it may be easier to give more specific advice as well!
 
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