What's the old saying, "when you find a good subject, milk it." Ok, I made that up, but it does describe my basic approach to photography. I probably spent 45 minutes to an hour taking photographs of five different leaves that were suspended by spider web threads. I considered only two of the leaves interesting after I down loaded my files. This is the second one.
This photograph posed a different problem from the first one--I had to think about how to do this one and as many of you know, that is generally not my strong suit. It was brightly backlit, which gave the leaf a translucent appearance. I wanted to retain this, but I also wanted to make sure that the background did not blow-out and I got some detail of the front side of the leaf. What to do? FLASH! No, that is not what happened to my brain, it is the piece of equipment that I needed to use.
Since I was romping through the woods, I did not have a lot gear with me--camera, 105mm, 28-70mm and 70-200mm lenses, cable release, a flash, a synch cord and a tripod--seems like a lot of stuff when you list it out this way. I set everything the way I wanted and then took various shots while dialing the flash down. I finally settled on a flash set at 1/32 power and held off to the left of the leave. Unfortunately, the fill flash was a little harsh. I had no diffuser with me. So, I made my own diffuser. I found a branch and attached a sheet of kleenex to it and I had my instant diffuser. It softened the light just the way I wanted.
Now, the real trick with this set-up was holding it all. I had the camera on the tripod with cable release attached, flash in my left hand and branch with my very expensive diffuser and cable release in my right hand. After a few shots, I got the hang of it.
OK, Little Cricket, what is the lesson here? Right. If you are going to photograph in the woods do not leave home without an adequate supply of kleenex. Very good.
Camera settings: Nikon D3, 105mm Macro f/2.8, ISO 200, f/16, 1/250 of a second, on a tripod with Nikon SB800 attached by SC-29 cord and special home made diffuser used
Post Processing: Lightroom--set white and place points and added mid tone contrast.
Great shot Patrick!
ReplyDeleteAnother beautiful shot and a very clever solution to a real life lighting problem. Thanks for sharing the process you went through to get these great results.
Cheers!
Barry
It sounds like these two leaves were close to each other. Yet, you have two totally different looks. I like the back lighting on this one, but I like the shape and colors of the other one. I think that we sometimes lean to much on equipment and forget to use our little minds to help us think around what looks like a problem. You did a good job improvising. Thanks for sharing this with us.
ReplyDeleteAnne
I like your leaves. You have a good eye to see something like this. This one seems a little darker than the other one. Hope to see more of these type of shots.
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