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I went exploring in my lounge room yesterday. It was a voyage of discovery.

There were a bunch of Dahlia on the Table that I wanted to use for some product photography. Instead of just moving them, I played with them as a subject. Now I know you pros and tragics out there will think is is ordinary stuff, but for me...

Sorry about the number of photos, but I feel the need. If mods complain, I will convert a few to links
To start with, This is the scene with available light. You can see the source window in the reflection...

I brought in the light tent, but instead of sitting the flowers in it, I put them in front of it.

Then I brought in the flashes (2xSB800, 1xSB900) and played:

I just started cranking up the power on the SB900 (front)



The only one of these I don't like is the first with available light. Even the last one with the hyper blown reds works for me.I am astounded just how much you can crank up the exposure & still have a keeper.

So the lighting was 2XSB800 lighting the background. 1x SB900 lighting the foreground.
As luck would have it, Surenj posted a link to on white photography in another thread If I had read that first, I would have changed some things, but possibly not learned as much. One thing I will do next time is pay attention to the ratios between the two flashes. For these, I just chimped.

I am interested in what others think of these images, and suggestions of how to improve things.

I think the three flowers works but the lone bud is more of a distraction.
Colours are nice
Just my 2c

colin_12 wrote:I think the three flowers works but the lone bud is more of a distraction.
Colours are nice
Just my 2c

I actually like the available light version, but the 2nd flash version is very nice as well

Nicely done Greg, I agree that the available light version has 4 shadows that detract from the subject at hand. It does emit a slightly desolate depressed mood however.

I would have personally set ISO 100 and max sync at 1/200 to eliminate all ambient light so you have total control over the lighting. I think at 85mm you could easily managed with one SB800 in the background. But then, Mcnally would agree with more the merrier....

Thanks for the feedback.
Suren. I am not sure what happened to the last photo. It is at 1/60. All the other flash shots are at 1/250 which is sync for my camera. Maybe I bumped the dial, but I don't know how. I tend to leave ISO at 200 as it matches the D70. Not sure why, but I do. Didn't think to lower it. Must remember to.

I use two flashes for the background as it produces a more even light. One flash gives fade from one side to the other. That tutorial you pointed us to mentions this, though I found it out the hard way. Sometimes I use one flash behind, but that produces a hotspot in the middle.

Here is the second photo again with the bud removed for Colin. I didn't know NX2 could do this before. Thanks


And for Cameron and Suren, one I took with the front flash off. I think it is more successful at melancholy then the available light one which just looks flat to me. I also trimmed the little bit of edge at th bottom which bothers me, but as it is a lighting exercise didn't worry about it before.


A question. When I checked the EXIF after Suren's comment, I noticed that WB = Cloudy. Yes I took it at Cloudy. This is my default setting, but I changed it to Flash in NX2. Shouldn't this change the EXIF too? I have also noticed that if I change WB of the NEF in NX2, then do further mods in CS3, the WB changes are lost. Is this a problem with NX2, TIFF or me?

Mr Darcy wrote:And for Cameron and Suren, one I took with the front flash off. I think it is more successful at melancholy then the available light one which just looks flat to me. I also trimmed the little bit of edge at th bottom which bothers me, but as it is a lighting exercise didn't worry about it before.

Looks really good, different, dark but still very attractive

A question. When I checked the EXIF after Suren's comment, I noticed that WB = Cloudy. Yes I took it at Cloudy. This is my default setting, but I changed it to Flash in NX2. Shouldn't this change the EXIF too? I have also noticed that if I change WB of the NEF in NX2, then do further mods in CS3, the WB changes are lost. Is this a problem with NX2, TIFF or me?

Can I point the finger at PhotoChop? I noticed that when I use photochop to open up a NEF file it will get me to redo all my adjustments (it is as if it doesnt read the sidecar file (with all the processing info) at all, unlike NX2). But if you are exporting to TIFF I am not sure what has happened.