Beginner Macro Day 5

chrispp

chrispp

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Chris
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Hi all, let me start by thanking all the forum members who have kindly read and commented on my posts so far, much better than I could ever of expected and it has helped me no end.

Being persuaded to go back to basics and slow down I spent a few hours last night taking photos of a knurled plug and coins gauging the DOF I was happy with. Some 200 photos later
I feel comfortable with my findings.

As the weather has been crap today and I an using up some of my holiday days I thought i was use my findings and try out flash compensation and diffusion.

Here are a few of what I feel are the better ones from todays exercise. I kept the aperture around f11 - 16 SS 1/125 and iso between 200 and 340 flash was in the same position to the left of the subject

I am struggling a little to decide between these 4 ?

Moth Flash Trial006 by Chris_Pritchard1, on Flickr

Moth Flash Trial12 by Chris_Pritchard1, on Flickr

Moth Flash Trial23 by Chris_Pritchard1, on Flickr

Moth Flash Trial25 by Chris_Pritchard1, on Flickr

Moth Flash Trial26 by Chris_Pritchard1, on Flickr

Any thoughts, advice is gratefully appreciated.

Many thanks as always

Chris
 
Tintin124 said:
#1 as the other look underexposed to me.
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Ahh right, the other seemed a tad over exposed ? Below is my Flickr album of the pics. If you would be so kind as to take a look and let me know if these are the same ? I think a lot are over exposed. The light as you say is really hard !
I tried to keep the aperture as high as possible to get the detail, so in the end after a lot of pics I set the false compensation to -2.3 on ave. I know the pics are dark but there unprocessed but I felt better detail ?

https://www.flickr.com/photos/chris_pen/albums/72157657741162261

Thanks Bryn for your continued kind help and assistance Chris
 
In that album I can only see 2 that are over exposed and they are only just pulling the highlights back would sort that no issues.

Is your monitor calibrated? Your brightness on the monitor maybe too high which is giving you the impression of over exposure, also what does the histogram say?
 
Tintin124 said:
In that album I can only see 2 that are over exposed and they are only just pulling the highlights back would sort that no issues.

Is your monitor calibrated? Your brightness on the monitor maybe too high which is giving you the impression of over exposure, also what does the histogram say?
Click to expand...

Um never even thought of that one ! I'll look at that. Thanks for the assistance Bryn

Chris
 
I'm very curious about Moth Flash Trial001, 002 and 003. They are all marked as "FEP 0 f11 1/125 iso200", with no indication of a different diffusion material as with 004, but those three look very different, both in terms of exposure and colour balance. Similarly, in terms of exposure for 011 versus 010 and 009, all marked "FEP -2.3 f11 1/125 iso200", but 011 looks much brighter than the other two.

I don't suppose you are using spot metering are you?
 
GardenersHelper said:
I'm very curious about Moth Flash Trial001, 002 and 003. They are all marked as "FEP 0 f11 1/125 iso200", with no indication of a different diffusion material as with 004, but those three look very different, both in terms of exposure and colour balance. Similarly, in terms of exposure for 011 versus 010 and 009, all marked "FEP -2.3 f11 1/125 iso200", but 011 looks much brighter than the other two.

I don't suppose you are using spot metering are you?
Click to expand...

Hi Nick, 1,2,3 were diffused with an opaque white plastic, and 4 was with a piece of white material. None of these has flash exposure compensation and all were multi segmented metered.

I have realised that the desk lamp was making the images seem a lot brighter on my screen. However looking again at the images I am more led towards the later images no 20 onwards as they
seem to have more detail although a tad under exposed. The first few were taken with different diffusers then from 6 onwards I used flash exposure compensation upto -3.0 settling on -2.3

My favs or what I saw as the better ones were the last 2 I took

Moth Flash Trial25 by Chris_Pritchard1, on Flickr

Moth Flash Trial26 by Chris_Pritchard1, on Flickr

I haven't processed these in camera raw just changed to jpeg. If the opinion is they are under exposed I can work with that and move on. but if not then back to the drawing board as they say. last one above worked on in camera raw and
exposed +1.45

Moth Flash Trial038 by Chris_Pritchard1, on Flickr

I thnk I am there with my DOF understanding but the light is crucifying me ! Diffused, flash exposure, speed, iso, so m it to work at

Thanks for your comments always appreciated

Chris
 
chrispp said:
Hi Nick, 1,2,3 were diffused with an opaque white plastic,
Click to expand...

If they were diffused using the same piece of plastic then I'm surprised they look so different, given that they have the same settings. That is what is puzzling me and why I asked about the metering mode.

chrispp said:
However looking again at the images I am more led towards the later images no 20 onwards as they
seem to have more detail although a tad under exposed.
Click to expand...

I just played with Trial25 in Lightroom and ended up boosting the exposure by 1.5, similar to what you did with the last one. So I think these are well under-exposed. That is what they looked like to me as soon as I looked at them, and that is the story that the histogram tells. On the top right here we can see the histogram for Trial25 as uploaded to Flickr. It has a gap at the top end, indicating under-exposure.


NOT MY IMAGE - Chris Pritchard1 original Histogram by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

Here, on the right, are the changes I made to it.


NOT MY IMAGE - Chris Pritchard1 brightened adjustments by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

And at the top right here is what the histogram looked like after making those changes.


NOT MY IMAGE - Chris Pritchard1 brightened Histogram by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

This suggests to me that using flash exposure compensation of about -2/3 might be the thing to work around. Interestingly enough, and FWIW, I most often use flash exposure compensation of -1/3 or -2/3 (unless of course I'm setting the level manually, which I do quite often these days).
 
GardenersHelper said:
If they were diffused using the same piece of plastic then I'm surprised they look so different, given that they have the same settings. That is what is puzzling me and why I asked about the metering mode.



I just played with Trial25 in Lightroom and ended up boosting the exposure by 1.5, similar to what you did with the last one. So I think these are well under-exposed. That is what they looked like to me as soon as I looked at them, and that is the story that the histogram tells. On the top right here we can see the histogram for Trial25 as uploaded to Flickr. It has a gap at the top end, indicating under-exposure.


NOT MY IMAGE - Chris Pritchard1 original Histogram by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

Here, on the right, are the changes I made to it.


NOT MY IMAGE - Chris Pritchard1 brightened adjustments by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

And at the top right here is what the histogram looked like after making those changes.


NOT MY IMAGE - Chris Pritchard1 brightened Histogram by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

This suggests to me that using flash exposure compensation of about -2/3 might be the thing to work around. Interestingly enough, and FWIW, I most often use flash exposure compensation of -1/3 or -2/3 (unless of course I'm setting the level manually, which I do quite often these days).
Click to expand...

Same plastic but different angles of the flash head perhaps, I can't think why else there so different. Im gonna have another go tomorrow making the most of my last few holiday days ! Interesting regarding the exposure -1/3 or -2/3 ill check through my images as I am sure I took shots at those levels. How much will the metering affect from spot to multi ? Another try I guess.

This process I have gone through has taught me a lot so thanks for your continued replies more than I could ever of hoped for after posting a few shots of fly's. The edited pics don't seem too bad now, my screen looks better without the desk lamp
shining on it. Ill have to look around for another subject to practice on the poor old moth has been laid to rest.

Thanks Bryn and Nick much appreciated. You to should write a guide :)
 
chrispp said:
Same plastic but different angles of the flash head perhaps, I can't think why else there so different. Im gonna have another go tomorrow making the most of my last few holiday days !
Click to expand...

Keep experimenting, that's a great way to learn. But don't spoil the rest of your holiday by doing nothing else! (It is very easy to get drawn too far into this close-up/macro stuff. And yes, that includes me. I need to back off sometimes or it all gets a bit too much. :))

chrispp said:
How much will the metering affect from spot to multi ?
Click to expand...

A very slight change in the direction the camera is pointing can make a huge difference when using spot metering. For example, I was photographing a poppy with bright red petals several years ago. The petals were very light (added to which it was in bright sunshine), but the poppy had a very dark centre. I was using spot metering. With the camera centred on one of the petals, the exposure came out looking ok. The centre was very dark but you would expect that, but the petals were fine. When I moved the camera just a tiny bit and it pointed at the edge of the dark centre of the poppy the camera worked out the exposure so that dark area was properly exposed. This over-exposed the petals, and they went bright yellow!

So, with spot metering a small change in what you are pointing at can make a big difference to the exposure. When using multi-area metering ("evaluative" metering is what it is called on my cameras), you can move the camera around and small movements won't make much difference to the exposure.
 
Frankly when you can't tell what is good or bad it's time to take a break!

And I don't mean that in a bad way but often after I've processed maybe 100-200 pics I just pack it in and leave them for a while.

And when you're trying to evaluate small differences like you are it can really get to you.

On the other hand what you are getting is a real grounding in techniques and PP - what so many beginners tend to forget about in their search for instant success.
.
 
:agree: also a calibrated monitor will help greatly a good friend of mine explained the benefits of this to me over a couple of pints of cobra followed by a great curry :)
 
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