How To - Tune up your macros with some off camera flash.

With the spring flowers showing up, I thought I'd throw out a few ideas on how to improve your macro shots. You'll need the basics, camera, tripod, macro lens etc. But what about a flash? The great thing about macros, your on camera flash (diffused) can help ad a bit of frontal light pop. The other advantage of running flash is the smaller aperture you can use.

Get that flash off camera and all sorts of possibilities open up. Front light, back lit, side light. Its all breezy! These are some quick examples on lighting, straight out of the camera this morning. The Columbines opened up in our pot outside the store, so I grabbed a few.


No flash, available light. Not bad.

A little OCF action.

Again, available light.

And a little remote, off camera flash

One more

And some flash pop.

I put my camera in CLS mode with the flash set to TTL hand held. Moved it all around the flowers for different effects. With the camera locked down on the tripod, you can really see the effect that moving your light around has.