SJP "Sullivan J Photography"

Hello all,

Hope you had a nice week practicing with your camera flash (off the camera).

Just to let you know, I didn’t have time to show you techniques using umbrellas and tents today, that will have to wait for another post, but I would like to talk about some other alternative lighting techniques that work well with macro photography.  Before I start, I wanted to let you know that I will be on a well needed vacation for a couple of weeks.  I may have a guest article next week, I’m working on that now… hopefully, you will have that post up next Thursday, July 23.  I’m hoping to have my next article ready for you on Thursday, August 6.  I could talk about more lighting techniques, for example, photographing shiny objects in macro using a tent and umbrellas?  Or I can talk about processing files using Lightroom and Photoshop?  How about you all letting me know what you would like the next post to be about… I’m happy to discuss any of them.  Just send me an email or a comment on this post and I’ll go with the majority.  Thanks!

So let’s get started…

One of my favorite tools is the flashlight.  There are so many fun flashlights out there for you to choose from.  I personally use Streamlights but if they are too expensive try  Maglites, see below: the mini is wonderful for macro work, click on the photo for a better look.

Remember, if you’re photographing in RAW format you can manipulate the white balance and change the color of your picture.  If you want to have your photog true to life then so be it, or if your looking for a more dramatic look then play with your white balance.  For more technical info on color temperature click here. I found this wonderful article discussing light & color in photography on Photography.com that you can also read.  I highly recommend that you do read these articles because it will help you understand the tech side of lighting.

The photographs below were shot with a small Streamlight, I adjusted the white balance to my liking.

With the photograph above I am holding the flashlight above and to the right of my camera.  Look at your camera’s exposure level the first time you use your flashlight and adjust the f-stop & shutter speed to achieve the correct exposure, read my previous post IV if you don’t know what an f-stop or shutter speed is.  You may need to play with the exposure levels a bit depending on how close/intense the light is to the subject.  On the picture below I focused the light high above the flower to give it a softer look and to have the stem pop right were it meets the flower, my focal point.

One of the fun things to do is to stop motion macro style.   I found a wonderful article for you to read up on before you start your macro mode on water drops, just click here to read.  You will need your flash and either continuous lights or strobes for this.  My photographer friend said that you can try this outside with a reflector under your glass tank and a white cardboard behind the tank to achieve a good exposure, but I was in my studio so I used my flash and two hot lights, at least that’s what the lights used to be called before fluorescent light bulbs were around.  First let’s talk about continuous lighting.  Shortcourses.com has information on this style of lighting, they have some interesting reading on continuous lighting.  What I like about this type of lighting is that what you see is what you get.  You shoot the photograph and look at it on your LCD from the camera or your computer (if you have it synced) and make changes instantly.  The kit below is an awesome set!  It’s small for macro and all ready for you to work on.  The Plexiglas can add some creativity to your shots, you have an instant backdrop and you can also set your lights under table to diffuse the light for more fun creative shots.   You can purchase this kit at B & H or you can purchase the equipment individually, if you don’t have the money now for a kit.

To make the picture below, I used my continuous lights on each side of the water shot and used my flash above the drop with a ratio of 3:1.  Chuck McKern has a great article, “Understanding Lighting Ratios” if you want more detailed info on ratios.  I also suggest you read your manual that you received when you purchased your flash so you can play with the various ratios.   Tooooo much fun playing with water!!

Water shot: F3.5  @ 1/250

Another way to photograph macro is using strobe lights.  I don’t expect you to have these lights, they are very expensive but I want you to see what I use on a lot of my product shots. If your subjects do not like continuous lighting… then this is the way to go.  I like the quality of Speedotron, for more details on this brand you can click here.

Because we are shooting macro I like using honeycomb grids and snoots.   If you want more directional lighting this is the equipment you should use for macro. The degree of the grid will determine the amount of  light you want on your subject.   If you would like to research grid information check out B&H and other companies like Adorama.

Some of my photographer friends have used Calumet and have been happy with this company…check out this snoot from Calumet:

The photograph below was shot with the Speedotron equiment I just discussed.  I placed the snoot behind and a bit to the left to hit the lid of the can and I had my grid 20 on the lower right of my camera to really bring out the bubbles against the mirror.

I would like you to read this article by Urs Recher, posted on Digital Photo Pro on Light Lessons, focus on Image 6.  Just remember the more research you do on lighting techniques, the better you will understand how to light your subject.  Another excellent book on lighting is by Robert Morrissey, “Master Lighting Guide”, check it out at Amazon.  I would like you to focus on his lighting basics.

Today, I talked about my favorite tool, the flashlight.  I would like you to play with various flashlights to see what you can create.  I also discussed continuous lighting (see what you get lighting) and strobe lights for the subjects that can’t handle continuous lighting.  I showed you some really cool toys for directional lighting that work well with Macro & Close-up photography.  When playing with lights remember to always move them around to get a feel for your equipment, it’s like putting a puzzle together…at first it can be difficult but if you put it together more than once you’ll know where to put the pieces to complete your project.

I would like to leave you with another shot I did using the Speedotron equipment I discussed today.  You can photograph anything macro…this is my husband’s hair gel, lol!

Just have fun and be creative…

Cheers,

Janice

Hello all,

As I thought about this post I realized that there is a lot of information to talk about on alternative lighting.  My goal in these posts is to have you all learn something new on macro photography,  have projects for you to practice on during the week, read material to help with these projects, and if you have questions ask me via comments or email.  I don’t want to overload you with homework because I remember those days…. LOL!

So I decided to have 2 posts on alternative lighting (maybe 3)

Let’s talk about exposure for a bit.  When we photograph we want to be careful not to underexpose or overexpose the picture, read up on it again, it’s important.  Sometimes the subject can give us exposure problems and the only way we will be able to fix this problem is to use alternative lighting, reflectors, or working in HDR (I will have a post on HDR later).

When I’m outside photographing macro I realize that I need to wait for the wind to stop and pay attention to the sun/light hitting my subject.  Sometimes I ask my husband to stand over the area so I can remove the harsh shadows.  I have a very nice husband!!  But he’s not always available so I use reflectors to help me diffuse the area (see below).  B & H has a variety of reflectors/diffusers that you can choose from:

You can use a reflector to help shadow problems.

I also use reflectors to help eliminate shadow problems.  I use tinfoil most of the time when I shoot 1:1 macro, but when I’m focusing on close-ups, I work with the above reflectors.

Your flash is also a wonderful tool to add drama to your subject or to control the zone levels.  To learn your flash and any alternative lighting, I would  like you to photograph indoors first, then step outside and have some fun too.  Shooting indoors will help you understand your flash unit better, try a time when the light indoors is soft, maybe in the morning or in the evening.  Read your manual and play with the various adjustments. I realize that most of you do not have a macro flash.  If you get into the macro mode, you should definitely purchase one. Post III has an example of a macro flash.  One thing for sure…if you have a built in light on your camara…well, it won’t work for macro, sorry.  There is a variety of ways you can use your flash but you will need to take it off the camera,  click here to view some ideas and on here for more.   I used the system below with a flash diffuser to soften the light, check out Amazon for some excellent prices on diffusers.

This is an awesome kit if you use Canon products, check it out at B & H.

flash kit

Check out this link to read up on various diffusers.  Sometimes you will want a more dramatic look to your photo so take off the diffuser and go for it!

In this post I used a diffuser like the example below:

Used this diffuser off the camera for macro photographing.

I figured I would explain what I did for this macro mode of photographs. First, I went out to my back yard to grab some flowers. I decided to use natural light and my flash to show you what happens when you photograph in macro. My sliding glass door is on the left of the subject. As you can see from below:

Prominent natural light to the left of subject.

Below are the geraniums from my garden that I used for this post.  You can use any subject to practice on except shiny objects.  We will work on reflective services in a later post.  I decided not to clean these up, except for sharpening, so you can see the difference between natural and flash lighting.

I start my macro mode by deciding what I like about the flower. Keep things simple, too much in the foreground and background can be distracting, especially in macro photography.

without flash

I have my camera on my tripod and I’m photographing with my cable release.  I sprayed this flower with water for fun.  Even with water drops the flower has a flat look to it (see above), which is fine if that’s what you’re going for but I want the photo to pop,  so I set up my flash on 1/1 ratio.  Yes, I’ll have a post just on ratio’s too but for now let’s just play with the basics.  (You can click on here to read a discussion on ratios from photo.net, which is a wonderful networking site for photographers.)  I did several shots on the flower with my flash.  An easy way to achieve a good exposure is to check your setting you used in natural light and then set it to underexpose using your shutter speed by 2 stops, when flash is on 1/1 ratio, the flash will compensate for the underexposure.  If you feel the photo is over or under exposed by looking at your LCD screen, then change your shutter speed until you’re happy.  ”The power of digital photography”  Instant views!!

This flower was shot with the flash and diffuser:

Both photos below where photographed with a flash. Can you see the difference?  When you photograph macro and you need long shutter speeds to achieve a good exposure… you will see that the long shutter speed will need more direct lighting to create a more dramatic look. It also goes the other way, if you have prominent shadows on your subject you will need to increase your lighting intensity.

flash at a shorter shutter speed f8 @ 1/6s

Notice that the above photo is at a faster shutter speed than the photograph below.  When you play with this technique this week you may be frustrated if you want most of the photo (or flower) in focus (longer depth-of-field), no worries…I’ll show you next week some photos of the same flower using different lighting techniques.

flash with long exposure f22 @ 3s

I always like to give you reading material on macro photography. Read, “Closeup shooting” by Cyrill Harnischmacher’s book in your local library or purchase it for your own macro library.  I will be discussing in our next post some of the techniques in this book.

Today, I discussed the various ways to reflect and diffuse light.  When using your flash, you MUST take it off the camera and play with it by photographing around various locations on your subject.  Play with this technique indoors first to learn how your flash works.  Read your manual because next week we will talk about ratio’s a bit more.  We also discussed the difference on the way your flash will work on short shutter speeds compared to long speeds while photographing macro.

Next week we will talk about more lighting techniques using a flash light, umbrellas and tents.   I would also like to try and talk to you about hot lights (tungsten) and A/C strobe lights.

I’d like to leave you with a fun shot from the day:

Cheers,

Janice

Hello everyone,

If you have been reading the steps on, “How to Photograph Up Close” then you should know how to process your photographs and have some basic knowledge on macro equipment.  Did you do your homework and photograph in natural light?  Did you notice that the closer you got to the subject, the depth-of-field shortened (less in focus)?  Did you also notice that when you used apertures that ranged from F14 – F22 gave you more depth-of-field (more in focus) and that you had to let more light into the camera by making your shutter speed longer?  Also, did you notice that the auto focus on your lens doesn’t work well with macro photographing… setting the lens on manual gave you more control of what you wanted focused in your picture? Now that you have practiced… let’s have some fun with some creative macro techniques.  If any of you reading this haven’t done your homework…no worries just click here and start from the beginning.

First I would like to give you some basic art terms so you will understand what I’m talking about in the future posts.  One of the main design techniques I learned in school was the, “Rule of Thirds”.   Trust me, this rule works… be creative and photograph on all intersecting areas to see what you like. All of the photographs below have the focal point on one of the intersections.

The photographs above may not be exactly on the intersections, but they are close and do make an impact on the photograph.

I would like you to also read up on Color Theory.  It’s important to understand how colors work together, you will use this more when I talk about advanced digital darkroom techniques.  Today, I want you to pay attention to complimentary colors. When you see the color wheel (click on Color Theory), whatever is opposite to the color you’re looking at always works well when you combine them in a photograph. This is why, I believe, sunsets and sunrises are such beautiful pictures.

I have mentioned this before and will again, Depth of Field (DOF) is important when photographing Macro. Take a look at this photo of an eye (below). We see eye photos all the time but when you tell a story in the photo like this one, showing us that this person is dreaming about something….makes this photo powerful, DOF made this possible.

Let’s talk a bit about telling a story.  Most photo editors, art reps, etc… say that we must tell a story. I agree, but…when you first begin to photograph Macro, I feel you should photograph anything anyway, use a variety of views and techniques. Once you understand the basics of exposure and composition, you will then start to look at your photographs differently. Play, play, play…this is how you learn. Yes, reading books, magazines, and my blog help, but to really learn you must photograph up close to understand the whole process of Macro photography. Ok, now that I have lectured you again, lol…let me show you some creative techniques using natural light.

Because we are focusing up close, water drops can be a lot of fun! The viewer can enjoy the photo composition and then a whole new composition in the drop of water.  Definitely play with water drops!

Another creative technique is photographing a variety of textures.

Pay attention to the repetitive lines and shapes. Not only are you having fun playing with this creative technique you also will have the fun of seeing what our eyes normally cannot see.

Let’s end with my favorite technique, back lighting. Macro back-light is really exciting…especially when you focus on leaves and flowers. You can see the details in the life of the subject. You can also silhouette your subjects just be careful of lens flare but try it, you’ll be happy with your capture.   I found this great site that talks about back-lighting, check it out for more info.

Backlight using Natural light.

Today I talked about some of the various compositions of visual arts; Rule of Thirds & Color Theory.  I also would like you to shoot waterdrops, textures, and play with back lighting.  I would  like you to read a great column that photographer Harold Davis posted, “Focusing on What Matters”.   He has various projects for you to work on but what I like best about this post is that it will help you think about what you are photographing.  Have fun playing with natural light this week.  Next week we will discuss alternative lighting techniques.

Cheers,

Janice