Macro with flash or without?

I've been shooting macro shots for years using only natural light, but in the last year, I've been experimenting more with flash. Still though, I find myself wondering to what extent flash makes a difference. Here are two shots taken with the Oly 60mm 2.8 macro, one taken without flash, and one taken with. Both converted in ACR. Can you see a huge difference? Can you tell which is which?

Great discussion topic.

I like shooting Macro also and so far always use Natural Light.

To your question about any difference, I think the second photo is with a flash, as I think I am seeing more light on the left leave in the second.

One with S=1/20 - no flash

Another with S=1/60 - flash.

Did I solve the puzzle?

What flash did you use?

The shutter speed may be a give away.

I'm not really sure these examples are macro.

Shooting real close you'll have to stop down quite a bit to get more DOF and then the flash will really help.

The first is with the flash and has slightly better definition in the deeper shadows. But, in answer to your question, no I do not see any major difference. The natural light was off to the left, and the flash helped somewhat to even it out.

The flash was clearly not very much in play. What was your focus distance? Did you use the clip-on flash or an external one? and how far away from the scene was it?

--
gollywop

gollywop said:

gollywop wrote:

The first is with the flash and has slightly better definition in the deeper shadows. But, in answer to your question, no I do not see any major difference. The natural light was off to the left, and the flash helped somewhat to even it out.

The flash was clearly not very much in play. What was your focus distance? Did you use the clip-on flash or an external one? and how far away from the scene was it?

--
gollywop

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Suppose I wasn't thinking about the exif data giving it away! Yes, the first shot is with the flash, and the second is without. I was pretty close, but certainly the argument that this isn't true macro is a valid one: the 60mm 2.8 can focus much closer. These were taken with the OMD and the first one is using the FL-50R, on camera, in macro mode (you know how you can tilt it down), with a soft box diffuser.

Mikeywcu said:

Mikeywcu wrote:

I find myself wondering to what extent flash makes a difference.

Click to expand...

The very short duration of normal, (i.e. non-FP) flash freezes motion. This is good when subjects are moving, either because the subject itself is moving around or what it is standing on is moving. This is particularly marked for smaller subjects/higher magnification/fast moving subjects/breezy conditions. It is also good for working hand-held because the freezing effect avoids the effects of hand-shake, which become particularly marked as magnification increases.

(The situation is not so clear cut with FP flash, for which the flash is on during the whole exposure.)


Flash makes it more practical to use smaller apertures to get more dof, especially when light levels are not so good, and lets you use low ISOs. Or putting it another way, flash lets you work in lower ambient light levels.


However, flash can change the look of images, for example making backgrounds go very dark or black. I happen to be not too keen on this look (with some, oddly enough, natural light exceptions with plant images) and so I use natural light more often than I use flash. Given that I use very small apertures to maximise dof, and I often shoot in not very good light, I often end up using slow exposures (which produce high failure rates), high volumes of captures (to compensate for the high failure rates), a tripod (which is awkward and slow even though I don't use a "normal" tripod approach or a normal tripod) and high ISOs (which make PP more involved). So (for me) using natural light increases the amount of work needed to get nice images in terms of capturing, sifting/selection and PP.


Even with well-controlled diffusion and/or reflection, flash can leave its imprint as reflections on shiny surfaces. Again, this is a matter of taste, but I prefer not to see this effect in my images (for example in insect's eyes or on shiny bodies). Somewhat inconsistently, I don't mind too much if I get the same effect from the Sun.

In bright conditions fill flash can even out lighting and makes shots practical that would in natural light have too high a dynamic range to produce a nice result.

There are lots of times natural works and in fact can be better, however there are a equal (if not greater with macro) that flash works better.

The important thing with macro flash is that you need to reduce potential glare or you get very a "unnatural" look, or just blow outs. Diffusers, off camera mounts are different ways to achieve this. Also with a lens like the 60mm and its short working distance at 1:1 it can be difficult to get even lighting with a shoe mounted flash, so again a off shoe cable using remote control will work better.

Its just another tool to have at your disposal, you can always turn a flash off if you have adequate light, but its much harder to do the opposite if you don't have a flash.

Once you start shooting small subjects at f11 and 1:1 then you will need flash. End of story.

Martin.au said:

Mjankor wrote:

Once you start shooting small subjects at f11 and 1:1 then you will need flash. End of story.

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Hmmm..... These used natural light, f/22 and have scene widths of 18 - 20mm (i.e. around 1:1 for the 18mm wide MFT sensor, and well beyond 1:1 in APS-C or FF terms).















--
Nick
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gardenersassistant/

There's alway exceptions. However, I note that you also have quite an elaborate flash setup.

Also I presume most of these are tripod shot as they have pretty low shutter speeds?

Martin.au said:

Mjankor wrote:

There's alway exceptions. However, I note that you also have quite an elaborate flash setup.

Click to expand...

Yes. Some days I use all or mainly flash, some days natural light, some days I flip back and forth between flash and natural light. It depends on the circumstances and my mood. As the magnification increases, especially beyond 1:1 it becomes increasingly likely that I'll use flash.

Martin.au said:

Also I presume most of these are tripod shot as they have pretty low shutter speeds?

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Yes. Well, sort of. I use a tripod to help with framing shots and retaining the framing for sequences of shots and to dampen down hand shake. For the most part though I keep my hands on the camera so they aren't tripod shots in the normal, hands-off sense. I need very still air to use hands-off tripod shots, and I live in a breezy location so that isn't very often. But when I get the chance I do capture hands-off, using a remote release.