DSLR Photography Forum

I went to the forest with my flash to take some pictures of mushrooms. Very difficult with the flash! These are the best I got....


#1



#2



#3



Any advice to improve is very welcome...

The light on the first one might be a little harsh Irma, but you've done a great job with the other two.
I can imagine it would be tough not to blow them out using flash with them being basically white.
I especially like the natural light leading away behind the mushroom in the 2nd shot too. Very nice.

Thanks so much for your comment, Adrian.

I've been reading about my flash in a group in flickr and as far as I understood I can have my flash off camera with a special wire. That would make a lot of difference since I could have the flash with an umbrella far from me and diffuse the light much better.

An umbrella is great indoors, or when you need a truly big apparent light source, but most of the time a plain flash is fine.
The closer you get it to your subject, the bigger it appears to be.
For these mushrooms I would have put the flash just out of the frame to one side, then played with shadows.

Diffused flash is more for bigger things like groups of people or cars or reflective products, in my opinion.
And you always want it as close as possible so it looks bigger to the subject and you can also reduce the power, which means the flash charges up again faster.

I can't wait to see what you can do with off-camera flash, Irma.
If you need any help, send me a message.

Hi Irma

I really like the second shot, very nice lighting.

Christian
www.6701.sunpixs.com

Last night I spent a couple of hours reading all about how a camera focuses. (It is not Nikon Specific)http://www.focustestchart.com/chart.html
It makes very interesting reading, especially if you are not over technically minded.

#3 is in focus on the front edge of the mushroom , thats how I see it anyway, and the branches below make it look all out of focus. #2 comes over best, with nice colours.

Thanks so much Keith for your comment and help, I appreciate it much...
I will read about that cable that is connected to my camera and the flash to see if I can use it with the one I have..

NT, I understand what you mean, and you are right in #3. That is the reason I want to have better lighting for this kind of pictures so I can go f/8 so to say with good shutter speed. The thing with #2 that it is a bit better is because I was far from the mushroom as the bokeh says.

Thanks so much for the link ...
Interesting reading, indeed.