> Sorry to be so late to respond. Thanks for the email. I thought the ringlight thread had dried up; I was cleaning up my PDML mail when I noticed your contribution.
> If I get you right, you are working with > _fairly_ small motifs, and want a _directional_ light without too much > contrast. That is a good summary. I think reducing it to the above is a big step in providing a definite problem to analyze. > One thing I have tried (but not often) is to use a white plastic bag over > the flash head as a diffuser. Or a white cardboard strapped to the flash and > pointing it slightly away from the motif. Well... just another > suggestion.... I recently started experimenting with a small on-flash diffuser, a Sto-fen. I haven't returned to try it on the problem objects, but it seems to have helped out considerably in some random experimentation I've done with different subjects. One, surprising, effect of the diffuser was to eliminate the need to ... clean the dust off the subjects. With their smaller scale the directional light from the strobe casts distinct shadows not only from subject detail, but from dust lying on the surface! With the diffuser the dust no longer cast shadows and is not so noticeable. Your suggestion of trying a larger diffuser is interesting, though. Combined with the pan/tilt flash head or a hand-held off-camera flash I could noticably move the light source to minimize the shadows, or to move them to a better location. > Mostly I work with natural light, and rather take the long exposure times > than digging the flash out of the bag...:-) Natural light works well with many things. However when I'm indoors with random lighting and backgrounds the flash provides a couple of instant corrections -- one is to correct the lighting tone to daylight. The other is to provide enough light that I can try to use a higher shutter speed to dark down distracting backgrounds. > Hope you find a solution that works for you. Thanks for the info, and Thanks! Bolo -- Josef T. Burger - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
