Playing with off camera flash...

[YvetteC]

I don't have much experience with off camera flash so I thought it would be fun to play with white peonies...it was hard to find a balance between the petals looking blown out and the photos looking underexposed. Any suggestions? Thanks!

1
DSC_5338 by Yvette C., on Flickr

2
DSC_5340 by Yvette C., on Flickr

3
DSC_5326 by Yvette C., on Flickr

 

[Derrel]

You have created beautiful, soft, highly diffused light with a very low lighting ratio. It looks wonderful on the delicate white petals.

A couple tips: the closer the light source is to the subject, the faster shadows will develop on the off-side. Moving the light farther away from the subject will make the light stay "even" in intensity, but will of course, cause the light level to go down.

Again, I will re-state this for: So, a closer light is "softer"--but at the same time, objects that are not very much farther away from the light on the "shadow side or off side" will develop dark shadows fairly quickly. And, as the light is moved farther away, the light becomes "harder"--but it also becomes more even in intensity over various distances.

 

[cgipson1]

Nicely done! (we see shots like this so often that are under or over-exposed... you pretty much nailed it!) As Derrel mentions above... the distance of modifier to subject is important in how soft the light is, and how shadows are created. SIZE of the modifier affects this also. The larger the modifier (physical size) will affect the softness of the light, and the distance at which it can be used (perceived size). As in a 60" modifier can be farther away than a 30" modifier, and yet will give the same soft light... and soften the shadows significantly more than the 30" would.

 

[YvetteC]

Thank you both so much for the advice...as you can tell, I had a hard time avoiding the shadows in #2 and #3. I did have my light source just a few feet away from my subject. I didn't even think to back it up but it makes sense...I will have to play more this week!