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glare or highlights on black beetle - poor diffuser ?

Started 5 months ago | Discussions thread
OP jim mij Senior Member • Posts: 1,027
Re: glare or highlights on black beetle - poor diffuser ?

Mike Engles wrote:

The beetle is very shiny and you have a light acting as a point source. The light reflector/diffuser has to be really large in relation to the object, in essence to act like a overcast sky in daylight.Those diffuser/reflectors that have a hole to let the lens poke through seem to be effective, but I imagine they need a powerful flash as a lot of light might be lost

That is why I suggested test pictures of reflective surfaces, with and without flash

Also in Fred Miranda, the macro forum has a long running page about peoples setups, which is pretty useful. Youtube has many videos about this very subject.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=macro+flash+diffuser

I had one of those poke through types which was ok but I ended up using it as the diffusion material on a DIY softbox type based on the several youtubes i watched, i was trying to get more focussed light / more light from a lower powered flash to speed up recycle time (eneloops had a +ve effect on that)

Its interesting that the DIY approach all seem to be a box with a flat diffusion panel, whereas the ones people buy and rave about (pope, ak, radiant, etc) all seem to be curved and have a concave diffusion panel. The internal led lamps must also aid focussing and provide some background lighting.

I assume that curved approach has some advantages? but why ? I dont see glare on examples provided from these ... but then again most of my shots dont have glare either - usually just shiny beetles.

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Jim

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