Strobist Exercise 102-1-2 (Outside Flower)

After taking pictures of the grapefruit and the near-far pictures using the "depth of light," I decided to experiment with light modifier outside. All pictures were taken w/ Nikon D200 on Manual ASA=200, built-in flash to trigger Nikon SB-800 on SU-4 Remote. Built in Flash was at 1/128 power, not affecting exposure. No post-processing, jpegs straight from the camera.

First exposure without Flash, Aperture Priority f4.0 (I got a bit "arty" in this image, as I wanted the background t/b blurred. The exposure w/ f7.1, which I'll be using as a base, looks exactly like this one, except for DOF:

With Flash at 30-40 degrees to camera right, the next is D200 on Manual at f7.1 and 1/250. The flash was set about 1/32 power--my best guess after 1 chimp picture:


It's about the same, except--the the background rocks--are slightly darker. The results are better. The main daff and leaves were better exposed, with a better gradation in the background. That is, IMO the background was lit better. I didn't change the background exposure of 1/250, because I didn't want the background to be lighter. In example case, off-camera flash was not tremendously better, because I had an optimal day for flowers--light-cloudy skies.

Here's the picture I liked:

Here's another shot, with flash nearby, shot through a white screen (Impact modifier). Seems to have better sparkle of specular highlight in H2o:

Note, I didn't try other modifiers like the Nikon built-in plastic lens or the add-on translucent or the Lumiquest, because the soft light through the clouds provided a good picture to begin with. I would not have gained anything, if at all, with modifiers. I even tried the Impact White Screen, but it didn't do much, except darkening the flower--leaving the background light; in this case it didn't look natural at all.

On to another subject, some leaves that had fallen on our apple tree in back of the house. Here's the image in Aperture priority mode, f5.0 at -2/3 EV. The leaves are nicely lit, but the background is too bright for what I wanted:


So I put on a flash, with the small Nikon diffusion add-on. It added some separation between the leaves and background. The flash & camera were on Manual. My guess on exposure is coming closer, only 1 chimp shot needed to figure out the camera had to be on f7.1, and the flash was about 1/32 power--I'm not keeping notes, because the chimp is very close-on the correct exposure I wanted:
While some may feel the background is too dark, that's what I wanted. At least now I have some control of what the background should be--that was my goal of this Strobist exercise. The best exposure was when I put flash on the right, aimed upward, and used the Impact light white modifier circle as a bounce to the leaves. Great shadowless shot, but unfortunately one of the branches on the left got the shadow on the leave. I even tried to modify the modifier by folding it over. Oh well, the next time I will more carefully aim the modifier, and I really must get another light stand to hold the modifier!




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