Okay, the sky has been overcast, but the rain has stayed away, thankfully. So I haven’t gone far, just around my back garden, experimenting with my new flash. Initially I was using the flashe’s automated mode with some mixed results, but settled on the manual mode which gave me some more control over the power of the unit. Using camera manual mode and flash manual mode gave me more flexibility with light control. I have used a diffuser to try to soften the light a little, but I still need to work on things much more.
Over all I wished I had bought this flash unit sometime ago. It now means I can use a narrower aperture which opens up more detail with a less shallower depth of field.
So far I have narrowed to f/22, where as before, even in good light, I was using f/7.1. Photography is a balancing act with light and all the other forces that come into play, so always learning, which can’t be a bad thing, I don’t think.
Please click on an image for a larger more detailed view. Clicking a second time may get you a little closer.
Rear garden, Staffordshire, England. June 2017.
Nature Journeys 
Pure excellence Pete!
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Thank you very much, Beth 🙂
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Practice makes perfect 🙂
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🙂
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Enjoying the flash journey and your pearls of macro wisdom.
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Thank you, Diana 🙂 I am always on a learning curve.
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Seems like a quickly accelerated linear trajectory to me mate!
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🙂 I find every image is trial and error with me. I have a few basic settings I use, but it is all dependant on subject and the light at the time.
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What a beautiful Hue
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Thank you 🙂
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nice! ❤
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Thank you 🙂
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:O f/22?? If I tried that, everything would get blurry. 😀 Very nice! I especially love the raindrops. 🙂
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Thank you, Ingela 🙂 It all depends on your lens, but going narrower with the aperture you can get diffraction where you start to loose sharpeness. Above f22 I would probably start to struggle even with added light. Each lens has a sweet spot too, so whatever works the best for you, and what effect you want. I have found the smaller my subject and a wider aperturet I get sharpness but I get too much of a shallow depth of field and extra detail is lost. I am still experimenting and on that learning curve 🙂
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Yeah, when I first started out I misunderstood things and thought the narrower the better, which made for some disappointing photos! I’ve now learned to use shallow DoF for effect, but in your case of course you want more detail, since that’s sort of the point of your pictures. And I have noticed that I always tend to use one of three apertures, probably because I’ve noticed that my lens likes them.
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It is quite a balancing act, depending on the light and the subject, but we do have our favourite settings 🙂
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I just found your blog from an online acquaintance of mine, Kyla Shelly, and I’m really happy I stopped by. Your photos are phenomenal, and I hope to get to the level you are one day. I take decent pictures, but nowhere near as fabulous as yours. Keep up the awesome work!
May I ask, do you have a macro lens? If so, what kind? I’m trying to find one that will suit my Nikon D3300.
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Thank you very much for your lovely comment, Jessica 🙂 I just visited your site and you take some fabulous photos!
To answer your question, yes I have a macro lens which I originally bought for my Nikon D3200 until I upgraded to the D7200 last year. It is a Sigma 105mm macro lens with optical stability (OS), and on some of my very recent posts I have clipped a Raynox DCR-250 conversion lens to the end of it to get even closer to the microcosmic world of nature. But the macros lens on its own is a very good piece of kit, and if you are looking for one yourself you couldn’t go far wrong for price and quality compared to other lens. Check the reviews online and compare it to other, similar lenses to help you make your own choice 🙂
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Thank you for the compliment 🙂
I will check out the lens to see if it is compatible with my Nikon. Thank you for sparing your time to help me out. 🙂
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