Concave diffuser test shots

GardenersHelper

GardenersHelper

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These were captured hand-held with an FZ200 and KX800 flash with Midi 2.5 diffusers and a single-layer concave diffuser as described in this post in my journey thread. Apart from #3 and #4, which used a Canon 500D close-up lens, the rest probably all used a Raynox 150 close-up lens.

#1

0790 06 P1150882_DxO LR by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#2

0790 07 P1150884_DxO LR by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#3

0790 11 P1150902_DxO LR by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#4

0790 12 P1150893_DxO LR by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#5

0790 15 P1150926_DxO LR by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#6

0790 17 P1150945_DxO LR by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#7

0790 26 P1150993_DxO LR by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

#8

0790 30 P1160009_DxO LR by gardenersassistant, on Flickr
 
"Excellent" set of images Nick, great detail & lighting with nice composition.(y)

George.
 
Absolutely brilliant set and nice to see the progress of your experiments... :D

I think the highlights on #2 are little harsh I know it happens with spiders in this orientation but think flash fired with a little too much power more than a issue with diffusion.
 
Neil Burnell said:
Superb sharp shots Nick and the concave diffuser looks to be working very well.
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G.K.Jnr. said:
"Excellent" set of images Nick, great detail & lighting with nice composition.(y).
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Tintin124 said:
Absolutely brilliant set and nice to see the progress of your experiments... :D
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Thanks Neil, George, Bryn. You are very encouraging.

And yet...

Tintin124 said:
I think the highlights on #2 are little harsh I know it happens with spiders in this orientation but think flash fired with a little too much power more than a issue with diffusion.
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Not sure I'd describe it exactly as harsh, but yes, there is more evidence of flash use than I like to see, and it's not just in #2. It's also in #1, #7 and #8. With the first two I suppose it is fair enough bearing in mind that this is probably better than I've done before. But I really can't see why I should be seeing it with #7 and (less so) #8. And with others from that set that I haven't posted, some of which are much worse even though I selected them as keepers.

I don't think it is a flash power issue. The highlight areas on the spider are not the brightest areas in the image (not as bright for example as the white thing between the tips of its rear legs for example). And here is the histogram for the image as imported into Lightroom (which is very similar to the histogram for the posted version).


0790 07 histogram as imported by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

Flash was the dominant light source, so turning the flash down would simply result in underexposing the image. I don't think that would change the relative brightness of that area. I wonder if it would make a difference having the flash heads further from the concave diffuser? I'll try that. I'm not thinking of that in terms of reducing the amount of light on the scene - I might turn the power up to compensate for the extra distance. But I'm wondering whether moving the flash heads back would change the distribution of light in the scene, giving more even coverage, even with the same overall brightness.

This is the sort of hassle that made me think of going back to natural light a few days ago. I used to use natural light all the time. But when I tried briefly, and looked at the results, it reminded me of why I turned to using flash - noise, slow shutter speeds, blur, high ISO, lack of detail. Nice colours, yes, lovely colours, but the price .... Maybe I'll get the tripod out again, and wait around for some calm air.
 
I saw your histogram on flickr, so I had to pop over and see what it was about.

Are you able to control the power of the flash heads separately so that you can create a lighting ratio? Have you considered lighting the background and the subject separately?
 
Wdesigndeb said:
I saw your histogram on flickr, so I had to pop over and see what it was about.
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Great to hear from you Deb. Good to see you posting at Flickr. Lovely natural light flower. Makes me think even more (see the end of my previous post) about how I may be ignoring what I love best (natural light) in this struggle to try to get flash to work nicely.

Wdesigndeb said:
Are you able to control the power of the flash heads separately so that you can create a lighting ratio?
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Yes indeed. On the face of it, the adjustments are a bit crude. Each flash head can be adjusted from full to 1/128 power, with 8 levels in total (ie. 1/1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32, 1/64, 1/128). This compares to full power to 1/256 in 1/3 stop increments with my (single gun) Metz 58-AF2. (1/1, 1/1 - 1/3, 1/1 - 2/3, 1/2 etc).

However, because the two guns are controlled separately on the KX800 I think this means that the amount of power can be adjusted in half stop increments by adjusting just one of the guns by a single level.

It is manual control only of the flash levels, so no TTL, but I'm not too bothered about that because I've always found TTL flash to be a bit of a lottery anyway, needing constant adjustment of the flash exposure compensation. So I don't see any real difference between that and manually setting the flash levels. And one advantage of the KX800 is that it is really easy and quick to change the flash levels. There are separate buttons for - and + power for each gun. These are really quick to use, and it can be done by touch, without needing to take your eye away from the scene, risking losing the subject from camera movement while making the flash adjustment. In contrast I have to do multi-button/wheel fiddling to change the flash exposure compensation or the manual flash level with the Metz, and you can't do it by touch - you have to look.

Wdesigndeb said:
Have you considered lighting the background and the subject separately?
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Oh yes. That is one of the major attractions for me, as I don't like black backgrounds for my invertebrate images. (I do occasionally have black backgrounds for flower images, but that is a different matter, and they are natural light anyway.)

Here is the nearest I have from that session to a like for like comparison with and without background illumination.

With background illumination


0790 31b Background illuminated P1150953 LR by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

Without background illumination


0790 31a Background not illuminated P1150958 LR by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

(This one actually has Shadows turned up to the maximum in Lightroom, but it makes virtually no difference.)

It doesn't always work, but when it does it can make a big difference.

Here is an example from another session, where one of the guns is used for both background illumination and differential lighting of the foreground and subject. There are some obvious differences in the background, but see how much difference the differential lighting has made to the foreground, both the subject and the foliage, and what you can (and can't) see by way of water droplets to the right of the shield bug.

With background illumination


0782 05 2015_09_01 P1120022_DxO LR by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

Without background illumination


0782 05a P1120023 LR by gardenersassistant, on Flickr


The flexibility of the arms also lets me illuminate scenes where subjects are in otherwise impossible to illuminate positions. For example, here is one where the spider was in deep shadow underneath the leaf. I used one flash head above, which illuminated the background and also threw light down onto, and I suspect through, the leaf, and the other gun on a level with the camera, maybe even a bit lower, illuminating the subject. This would have looked very different if I only had a single, top mounted flash gun, or with a pair of macro flashes or a ring flash mounted on the front of the lens.


0772 08 P1090525_DxO LR by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

I've been writing up my experiences and experiments with my newly acquired KX800 in recent posts in my journey thread. This includes quite a lot of information about diffusion arrangements, for which I've experimented with several setups.
 
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hoftwi said:
Wow!! These are superb shots Nick, composition,lighting are all excellent(y) I got a Raynox 250 but I can never use it, the result I got were horrible:(
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Thanks Icy. Sorry to hear about the Raynox 250. From your post today I can see you are doing fine without it, but what is the problem you're finding with it?
 
GardenersHelper said:
Thanks Icy. Sorry to hear about the Raynox 250. From your post today I can see you are doing fine without it, but what is the problem you're finding with it?
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I first used it on a Nikon 55-300mm (if I remember correctly) about 2 years ago, couldn't get the focus right. Then I bought a 1:1 macro lens and never used it again. Lately I tried to use it on my Sigma but the shallow dof is too difficult for me with the weight of my gears (yes,I still complain about the weight!). In most time, the Sigma is brilliant and I can't fault it at all but sometimes when I encounter with the tiny little ones, I had to crop a lot in my images so decided to give the raynox a try again. Oops! not for me!!!
 
hoftwi said:
I first used it on a Nikon 55-300mm (if I remember correctly) about 2 years ago, couldn't get the focus right. Then I bought a 1:1 macro lens and never used it again. Lately I tried to use it on my Sigma but the shallow dof is too difficult for me with the weight of my gears (yes,I still complain about the weight!). In most time, the Sigma is brilliant and I can't fault it at all but sometimes when I encounter with the tiny little ones, I had to crop a lot in my images so decided to give the raynox a try again. Oops! not for me!!!
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That's a pity. :(
 
More great results from a fantastic setup. I know exactly what you mean about the spiders legs, and looks like the issue is pretty much sorted here!
 
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