|
Post by kulamauiman on Jul 16, 2008 8:25:38 GMT
Aloha everyone was playing with my digital SLR (Nikon D40) and shooting some quick and dirty photos of my plants. It was an overcast afternoon, the sort I like to reduce shadows. Noticed something odd. shot a few with the built in flash and a few without. The pics shot with the flash are better colored but looses some details (ie. the dew on the sundews). Without a flash great detail but washed out. Is my camera over exposing the without flash photos due to the black background created by the media? If so then could I use the exposure compensation go back .5 f stops of light at a time to bracket? Attached are my photos: TIA, Mahalo, MTF With flash: Without Flash:
|
|
|
Post by Not a Number on Jul 16, 2008 11:17:30 GMT
Yes, a -.5 or -1 f-stop adjustment should do.
Or just spot-meter on the plant
Or your camera may have a "spotlight" mode
|
|
|
Post by BarryRice on Aug 1, 2008 18:37:54 GMT
Actually, your camera is functioning as expected.
Consider a glandular droplet in ambient light. That glandular droplet is being struck by light from all directions. As a result, every part of the glandular surface is scattering light in all directions, too. So when you take a photograph of it, using ambient light, the glandular surface is bright and clear. You can see the spherical glob of mucus quite nicely.
Now consider a glandular droplet being illuminated by a flash. Now, the vast majority of light is coming from one direction. Since your exposure is very short, contributions from ambient light are much smaller. So, the only light from the curved glandular surface that will bounce back into your camera is that one point set by geometry (where light goes from the flash, to the gland surface, and directly into your camera lens).
So when you use a flash, instead of a uniformly illuminated glandular surface, you'll just have a single hot-spot on the gland surface.
You can get around this by using a white fabric reflector, like one of those little umbrellas, and bounce your flash off of that. But to do so, you'll need to use an accessory flash, ideally one that is attached to your camera's hotshoe via a cord.
Cheers
Barry
|
|