Ring Flash on Macro...

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eeverson

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Euge
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Hi all,

More and more of my macro photos seem to have reflections on the body of the insects I am photographing so it gets blown out in places; the rest of the insect is exposed correctly.

I am currently using a canon 50d with Sigma 105 macro lens and 580EXII flash attached.

Whats the best way to eliminate the reflections? I have been looking at ring flashes but wondering wether or not that will resolve the issue....

Cheers
Euge
 
Probably.

I'm guessing that the light is not ideally where you want it, probably too high above the subject and not enough in front? Which means you are effectively having to over expose to get the main part of the image looking right.

Not knowing exactly how you're doing it, imagine if you were lighting a human subject in the same kind of way, is that where you'd want the light and is that the kind of result you'd expect? Try to think of it in those terms, and scale it down

Ring-flash is probably the answer.
 
You just need to diffuse the flash - A ring flash Will just make things worse as they are difficult to diffuse and tend to produce a harsh light.
 
Ring-flash is not harsh when used for close macro, ie insects. The softness of the light depends on the size of the light source relative to the subject. Compared to an insect, a ring-flash is very big - similar to using a couple of softboxes in terms of human portraiture. Furthermore, with a really small subject in the middle, one side of the ring fills in any shadows cast from the opposite side.

I think that will solve the OP's exposure problem which (if I've understodd it correctly) is more to do with all the light all coming from the wrong direction than anything else.

The RayFlash is an alternative, but it's not ideal for close macro. In particular, it's too big and gets in the way of itself. Good for flowers and that kind of thing, which is what I use one for (and fashion-style portraits :thumbs: ) but not as good as a custom ring-flash for close working.
 
HoppyUK said:
Ring-flash is not harsh when used for close macro, ie insects. The softness of the light depends on the size of the light source relative to the subject. Compared to an insect, a ring-flash is very big - similar to using a couple of softboxes in terms of human portraiture. Furthermore, with a really small subject in the middle, one side of the ring fills in any shadows cast from the opposite side.

I think that will solve the OP's exposure problem which (if I've understodd it correctly) is more to do with all the light all coming from the wrong direction than anything else.

The RayFlash is an alternative, but it's not ideal for close macro. In particular, it's too big and gets in the way of itself. Good for flowers and that kind of thing, which is what I use one for (and fashion-style portraits :thumbs: ) but not as good as a custom ring-flash for close working.
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All sounds good but in practice i found a normal diffused flash produced much much better results - Personally I've found the best macro lighting you can get comes from either a R1 kit for Nikon or a MT-24Ex for canon, both of which have a much smaller light source than a ring flash, but the type of diffuser is very important.
 
Dogfish_magnet said:
All sounds good but in practice i found a normal diffused flash produced much much better results - Personally I've found the best macro lighting you can get comes from either a R1 kit for Nikon or a MT-24Ex for canon, both of which have a much smaller light source than a ring flash, but the type of diffuser is very important.
Click to expand...

Those two are essentially like a ring-flash, with more versatile positioning options. The softening there comes mainly from having two heads, with one light filling in the shadows from the other, which are adjustable for position and brightness.

Diffusers don't soften the light in themselves, unless they increase the size of the light source significantly. They spread light about, and if there are objects close by that reflect that light towards the subject, then that will add some softening effect. But it's secondary to having light coming from both sides of the subject.
 
HoppyUK said:
Those two are essentially like a ring-flash, with more versatile positioning options. The softening there comes mainly from having two heads, with one light filling in the shadows from the other, which are adjustable for position and brightness.

Diffusers don't soften the light in themselves, unless they increase the size of the light source significantly. They spread light about, and if there are objects close by that reflect that light towards the subject, then that will add some softening effect. But it's secondary to having light coming from both sides of the subject.
Click to expand...

Well have to disagree on this ;) i found a off camera sb600 out performed a ringflash at 1:1 and with tubes - heres a example theres loads more on my flicker - but none with a ring flash because personally i thought it produced harsh images with a loss of detail.

dragon2.jpg
 
Dogfish_magnet said:
Well have to disagree on this ;) i found a off camera sb600 out performed a ringflash at 1:1 and with tubes - heres a example theres loads more on my flicker - but none with a ring flash because personally i thought it produced harsh images with a loss of detail.

<snip>
Click to expand...

Whatever works for you Paul, and that clearly works. V nice work :thumbs:

I'm only guessing that the OP's problem is that all the light is coming from above, and the underside is therefore in shadow and adjusting the exposure to compensate for that is blowing the highlights.

If that's the case then the answer is to get some light in to the front and lower part of the iamge, and you can really only do that with ring-flash or similar. That's really all I'm saying about that.

Either way, ring-flash should not create any harshness and I would have said more likely the opposite, like the Nikon R1 etc you mentioned, with or without diffusers, because they're basically multi-adjustable ring-flashes. I'm not understanding how a ring-flash produces "harsh images with a loss of detail".

More excellent pics on your Flickr, and a lot of them show that there's light coming mostly from above, or strongly from one direction. There could be more interesting detail hidden in the darker shaded areas. Matter of choice really :)
 
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