Charlie writes:
<< I am thinking that you did this hand held. >>
Almost always, unless it was a full plant shot and I was anticipating
reproduction as a full page spread - and seldom even then. Sometimes I
was forced to use a 1/15th sec. shutter speed to get light balance and
then I used a tripod.
<< Did you just tilt the flash head down as provided on the T-32? >>
Yup, plus swing the BG2 head so the flash was pointed to the subject
better. Also I used the diffusion filter or ND filters in the T-32
Filter Set to cut down on flash output. That was necessary to get a
balance to the ambient light.
<< Or did you remove the handle and hold it in one hand and the camera
in the other? >>
Nope. Just leaving it in place on the BG2 and having the light no more
than 1 to 2 stops brighter than the ambient light was just like
Rembrandt lighting portrait setup. The ambient light was the fill and
the T-32 was the key light. You don't really detect the use of a flash
when you do that.
<< How do you get a certain lighting ratio in manual and still use the
proper f stop without moving the flash way back? Neutral density
filters, flash meter? >>
There is amazing little f/stop adjustment necessary in the range of 1:2
to 1:7 Minor tweaking in the range between f/20 and f/14.5, when
desired. It was always important to close down a stop for bright flowers
and open one stop for dark flowers, though. I got my exposures down by
doing the math (guide numbers and bellows effect) and then taking a
series of bracketed shots at various magnifications. When I had it down
pat, I wrote down the best f/stop for each magnification and pasted it
to the head of my T-32. It's been on there for decades.
<< I never was too good with flowers or macro. >>
I admit, it's formula shooting, but the resulting shots were widely used
and it allowed me to shoot lots of shots without taking much time away
from necessary field survey work (what I was really getting paid for!).
I was always seeing threatened and endangered plants and small
animals/insects, often in locals where they had not yet been recorded
from. So it was a documentary style. My biologist collegues (in state
Natural Heritage Programs initiated by The Nature Conservancy) rarely
used flash and if they did it was overpowering flash. So my backgrounds
were my photography signature: 1-2 stop underexposed, softly
out-of-focus (yup, bokeh effect and I didn't even know what it was
called), plus use of a natural background. They didn't yell "flash
shot!" Shots from professional photographers were rarely available since
they either had steep prices for them in a stock collection no one knew
about or they didn't have a clue what the plants looked like so they
never photographed them. Semi-pro photographers often made the mistake
of keeping their slides too close to home and under too much control.
No one wanted to deal with the hassel of ferreting them out. So Heritage
Programs slide collections became the single best source of endangered
species photos, with the exception of bird photos. Besides publication,
the most common use for these was public slide presentations.
<< I also wonder about the flash reflection on the petals and leaves. >>
No problem with a diffusion filter on the T-32, unless the plant is wet.
Gary Reese
Las Vegas, NV
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