Flower, Lighting, Bokeh - C&C Please

[AprilEye]

Practicing and playing with bokeh and lighting. Talk to me...

 

[tirediron]

It's a good start, but a little heavy on the flash I think. Maybe try some form of diffuser?

 

[AprilEye]

It's a good start, but a little heavy on the flash I think. Maybe try some form of diffuser?

Yes...I agree it was too much flash... a diffuser will be next on the wish list!

 

[tirediron]

a diffuser will be next on the wish list!

"Wishlist"? Walk into your bathroom, there should be a roll of bulk diffuser on the wall.

 

[AprilEye]

a diffuser will be next on the wish list!

"Wishlist"? Walk into your bathroom, there should be a roll of bulk diffuser on the wall.

Oh you mean so i dont have to buy that piece of cloth at the store? See I have only had my flash a short while too so.... who knew? THANKS!

 

[tirediron]

If you're going to be using your flash a lot, it's a nice convenience to have the right diffuser for your flash, but you certainly don't need it. Thin tissue or translucent plastic will work very well in a pinch.

 

[dylanstraub]

I liked that you picked up the detail in the center of the flower. A bit less flash would have also given you some texture from the flower petals.

 

[clanthar]

Loss of texture/detail in the flower petals isn't a result of the flash in this case. Some posterization is occurring because the color of the flower petals was outside the working color space.

Joe

 

[PerfectlyFlawed]

Improvise... Google DIY Diffuser you can use a lot of different house-hold objects. Also you can bounce your flash ... off the wall, white paper...
Also ( ebay and amazon is good start) they sell little" diffuser caps" ( white hood that fits over your flash head) for like 3-5 bucks... Not sure how well they do... maybe someone can chime in on this. Or Something to the same extent, but its a softbox.
Inexpensive ways to play around.
These are not exact, but here-- you get the idea.. Hope it helps.

Diffuser

Softbox

 

[Johnboy2978]

Diffuse the flash and crop out the distracting lights. It sounds like you were trying to include the lights on the left for the sake of bokeh, but clearly the flower is the subject and the eye is naturally drawn to the brightest areas of the image, which is the lights.