Later Lilys

[Pacerr]

What a difference five days and a killing frost make.

Same lily. (Sort'a like Ron's re-cycled fish, eh? Except it doesn't stink after the first day.  )

Theses were shot with the Tamron Adaptall-2 SP 180/2.5 (63B) and SP 90/2.5 (52BB) as compared with the earlier image shot from the same location with the SP 80-200/2.8 (30A).

By the time I get done smushin' 'em up in PP there's just not much difference in practical IQ among the three lenses. The image shot with the 90mm macro was cropped to sort'a match the 180mm lens. I lost the light or I'd have tried the 90mm with the 2X TC for 'four of a kind'.

H2

[davidhampshire]

i really like these,   especially the top one and middle.     dave

[spyglass]

Nice Pacerr,  Nature can be cruel to her beautiful cast. When I see something like this I always wish I could see the interval shots streamed together in a stop photography clip.  Seeing the flower in it prime and near its end puts life in perspective.

Once again, nice.


Spyglass

[Pacerr]

Continuing the saga of the Death of a Lily . . . same scene another week later shot with the SP 80-200/2.8.

And to add to another discussion in recent threads there's examples using a variation of Ron's flash fill light technique vs. ambient light. The exposures were at a nominal F8. The dark image was exposed with the pop-up flash at a distance of about 8 feet using an 8-inch square milk jug diffuser screen positioned near the front of the lens and a strong LED flashlight spot-focused on the subject.

Images cropped to about 40-percent of the original image and re-sized, curved, sharpened and de-noised in PSP X4.

For those who might be wondering about the PSP Ver 4, it's a useful upgrade with a much more convenient user interface -- more of a LR 3 look and feel.

The comparison pair is from the FsIV 4.5 Compare tool and screen capture -- a very handy combination that I use often.

H2

Added the Bump map version. From the full image cropped to a vertical 5:4 ratio.

[davidhampshire]

did you get the black background,  pacerr,  when you used the milkjug technigue?     

[Pacerr]

did you get the black background . . . when you used the milkjug technigue?  

Nope, the dark(er) background's the result of lighting the foreground subject with (fill) flash that doesn't affect the background because it's so far away. Differential exposure as it were.

Light, and radio frequency stuff too, decreases in intensity by the square root of the distance traveled.

Say you have one "glump" of light at a point source, say, a flash bulb on the tip of a flag pole. It radiates to put an equal amount of light in each "square" degree on the inside surface of a sphere surrounding it.

If we "focus" the light beam, let's say, to cover the projected area of a lens on that sphere, we get to multiply the effect in the lit area by an amount proportional to the "shaded" areas by using reflectors around the bulb.

But then the strength of the light is decreased by the square root of the distance traveled to the target -- a big hit comparing squaring vs. multiplying.

Then what little hits the target starts all over like a new bulb source on the target with the first reduction being what light is absorbed by the target. Then it has to put up with that 'square root of the distance traveled back to the camera sensor' thing again.

You can see how two square roots worth of reduction sort'a kills the exposure of something way in the background compared to the subject. You adjust the effect by "moving" the background enough to get the effect you want.

TMI, eh?

The milk jug screen just served to further decrease the light and diffuse it so there was no sharp shadows from the flash -- the light source was broad enough to prevent that, like a cloudy sky.

H2

[davidhampshire]

oh man.....    i lost you at listening to the radio.....        

[davidhampshire]

ok,    here is a flash shot ,   using the white translucent plastic body cap that came with my k-5,   held over the camera flash a couple inches out ;    sorta like your milk bottle thing,   pacerr?     

[Pacerr]

Sort'a like the milk jug?

Yeah, sort'a. Hard to say without a comparison pix. But I don't see any objectionable shadows and it gave a soft, 'silky' look to the fur in your pix so I'd say it was successful if that was your intent. How'd it compare with a barefoot flash exposure?

To me, if the exposure's good, the value of any wide diffuser, including bounce light, is that it eliminates the sharp, high contrast shadows often produced by point source lights. You can get the same effect with bounce light but you have to have a suitable, nearby surface to bounce off of that doesn't cause weird color casts.

Because my goal is spreading the light source over a relatively large surface, I find that something bigger than my fist, say a paperback book size surface, far enough in front of the flash head to capture all the light in its beam works pretty well. Heck, a sheet of Kleenex frequently serves my purpose just fine.

The on-board flash works fine for my ad hoc close, soft fill light 'cause I don't use much fill. Ron's outdoor technique using a high F-stop for DoF and low ISO takes a lot more muscle -- I believe he's using an AF 500 and AF 360 as main and/or remote flashes. I've got an AF 360 and some older small stuff I rarely use.

I would note that in the case of this latest lily shot if I'd used the AF 360 I could have reduced the ISO and still closed down the F-stop for better DoF/sharpness in the flower -- I was just too lazy to dig out the 360 and do it RON'S way today.

H2

[davidhampshire]

as you can probably tell, by now,   i have not too much idea what i'm doing ,    so it's all a crap shoot so to speak,   but i have to get over my resistance to flash,    i guess.     the above shot was the last of maybe twenty,   with flash,   used a paper towel,   my hand,  the other shots looked terrible,  this was the 'best'     i'll keep trying .

dave

[Pacerr]

. . . have to get over my resistance to flash,   

Yeah, I whine an' squirm tryin'  to get out of usin' it but it is a tool and as they say, if a hammer's the only tool you own, every challenge is treated like a nail. That goes for insisting on using ambient light, too.

It doesn't have to be complicated though. Here's a shot of one of my cheap-o diffuser screens cut from a 1/2-gallon bleach bottle and a "re-enactment" of the latest lily shot.

Note the screen's not symmetrical so as to bias the light just a little and is mounted at the front of the lens to avoid casting a lens shadow. The LED flashlight focused to a spot beam also provides a touch of off-axis highlights. A rolled tube can act as a 'snoot' to give a spotlight effect -- the opposite of a diffuser -- by shading everything but the subject. The flashlight sort'a served that purpose here without casting shadows.

When I kluge something like this up, it sometimes helps to do some comparison shots into a large mirror to catch any hot spots -- or to arrange for one as desired.

Let your imagination out to play. Note the "barrel" used for general bounce flash and the corner reflector with foil mirror surfaces for more light.

I once used a large Styrofoam soft drink cup over a flash at the zoo in the presence of some Canicon users that apparently left their 3-ft soft boxes at home that day. I had to laugh watching one of 'em Dumpster-diving for the discarded cup after I left.

I will say this; using this sort of diffuser/reflector is more a fine tuning finesse trick and it turns out to be about what you DON'T see in the pix (like sharp-edged shadows) than making a big difference in what you DO see. You generally loose some contrast too, but that can be corrected in PP.

H2

[davidhampshire]

you don't put the diffuser in front of the actual lens do you?   

[Pacerr]

  . . . you don't put the diffuser in front of the actual lens do you?   

Uuh, well, I don't -- but you feel free to try that if you like.

If you enlarge the third pix you'll see how it's attached - a rubber band 'd work too.

H2

[davidhampshire]

ok,    pretty creative,   pacerr,      did you get the milk jug and paper clip at b and h ?    i bet ,  really though,    you could maybe market these .     dave       

[Pacerr]

. . .  you could maybe market these

I think I just did, Dave.  They're free, have one.

An I hear ya get pseudo-karma points for recycling milk jugs if you're in California. 

H2