First ttl macro flash on butterflies

[tpe]

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These were taken with my new toy, it is a sony macro twin flash. Fantastic not to have to guess the exposure and only be able to change apperture by changing ISO. However, I have some issues with it.

1, you can not use ratio between the two flashes with ttl, major minus in my thinking, and dont understand why not?
2 it is great that you can put the flashes on sticks with various diffusers, but unfortunatly you have to make sure that both flashes are going to be set up the same when using ttl. Why? If you put a diffuser on one and not on the other it under exposes, the same if you put a nd over one so as you can get some kind of ratio and still use ttl? Also i dont understand how it can underexpose when using pre flash ttl.
3 the pre flash is very slow indeed, and you can lose the shot.
Having said that, at home in the studio if your subject is not moving or you are doing a flower with a tripod, the manual settings are very versitile, you can use one flash as fill and one as a diffuse main light and get good effects. I can do that anyway as at home there is time to play and set up several flashes. So my conclusion was that the twin flash does not give you a ttl portable studio, which it could so easily if it exposed right or had ttl for ratio, but it can give nicer lighting than a ring when you have time to adjust your shots.
Here are a couple of shots with it, please be really horrid and harsh about them if you feel like it, the harsher the better, and if your better half said you only got the st vals flowers so as you could take pics of them please take it out on these shots .

What do you think, what would be a good way to get out of old habbits with a new flash etc, and anything at all derogatory about the lighting would be cool to hear ?



1

This has that typlcal macro black background, something that might be nice to leave behind by placing the flash heads further away from the subject






2

Here they were as far as the extendable arms would allow and the lighting appeals to me, hopefull it wont be all too had to repeat






3

Not sure about the shadows here, but it was at arms lenght and I couldnt get any further above it







4

Even though it has a very dark background this is my fave, using diffusers on arms about 20 cm above and to the left of the subject. When it is set up this way it really does make the camera look like an anorexic micky mouse cartoon camera, you get some odd looks when wandering around the local zoo with it .


thanks for looking
tim

 

[Overread]

Great shooting with the new toy Tpe! Must say I like them all - though the sparkle colours in the first have me jealous (there was a similar butterfly where I was when last shooting and whilst I could not get close to him he was sitting very still (over water on a plant) and his colours were shiny green like that - I don't think I managed to capture the shiny though - my flash would nuke the shine and colours of him and a non-falsh shot was too dark. I think a tripod and longer exposure were needed but not an option - so well done with yours

Also with the twinlights the mode you used last appears to be a popular method - the lights set to around 11Oclock and 1Oclock positions I think
I don't know if you know the blog already but Dalantech talks about this and the use of the twinlights (as well as diffusion methods as well)
No Cropping Zone
Well worth reading

 

[tpe]

You may want to take a print to the place and giveit to the head keeper, it can be very usefull as if you are lucky they ask you to do more and start providing specimines and generally make things much easier . And thanks very much for the link its great, lots of good info there.

tim

 

[DanPonjican]

Those are VERY cool! Very inspiring to pull out some macro gear!

 

[MHarvey]

That first one is so sparkled it looks like a plastic fishing lure, great shots