Tulips at Night

[John Christian]

I wanted to play tonight and experiment with flash. I set the camera up as follows:

Nikon D80/105mm 2.8 Micro/tripod/ISO 100/ f32 at 30 seconds/Manual metering with pattern/ manually fired flash 17 times/ 15 times at the 12, 3, and 9 o'clock (5 each) and two times off to the side of the flowers

Sharpened in LR2, + 9 Saturation/ off in exposure (added .5)

The picture isn't that great (at least what I can see after flashing my eyes in the dark), and how I got here was probably the long way around the barn. I was wondering if anyone has had any experience in night time shots utilizing a flash in this fashion. Any suggestions/comments would be appreciated.

[Bruce Murden]

John,

Your end result seems like it was just underexposed. It could have been done in a studio, or in the field. I don't mind having the colorful flowers on a black background (can look great!), but we just need more exposure here.

What flash did you use? What setting? How far away were you? Did you diffuse it at all? I'm surprised that you didn't get overexposure with so many flashes.

Keep in mind that the combination of the flash setting (power) and flash distance to subject determine the relative birghtness of the flash on the subject. Your f-stop determine how much of the flash comes in. And exposure determines how much of the ambient comes in. That'll make more sense in daylight and low light settings when doing manual exposure with flash. For your extended 30 sec exposure, you should have had enough time to paint the flowers with multiple flashes however you wanted. It seems like you were too far away.

Another thing about lighting: large sources relative to the subject appear soft, and small sources appear hard. Power of the source doesn't matter -- it's apparent size. Moving your flash closer makes it softer -- you just may need less power to keep it from being too bright.

So, in summary, try having the flash much closer, and dial power up or down as you need to. You may even want to build up to the final image by shooting tests at 2-3 secs or so, with only 2-3 flashes, and see if you're getting one area of the subject lit the way you like. If not, adjust flash to subject distance (and maybe even smaller f-stop, if not bright enough).

[Julie Kenward]

What Bruce said. :D

I'm much more of a natural light girl so I'm deferring to him. Roman might also be able to help you with this as his forte is night lighting.

I do agree that it feels underexposed and I was surprised to hear how many flash sequences went into this when I saw it. I also think from the composition it's a bit tight...I would have liked to have seen a bit more stem at the bottom of each flower to give it a little more room in the frame.

I do think you're on to something here, though. I'd try Bruce's suggestions and give it another go. Tulips at night...cool idea. :D

[Mike Moats]

Hey John, its good to see you experimenting here, I have to agree with others it has an under exposed look, I'm not a flash user so I can't help any.