Off Camera Flash

I have been thinking more about flash since my home made light stands collapsed.  I have begun using flash with my light tent indoors.  I recently read an article in Photo Tech Mag entitled The Real lives of OCF by Peter Tellone.  The main thrust of the article was for portraits using the real word for the background.  I don't photograph people that much but I learned some things which apply to my use of flash.  Peter says, "1. shutter speed only controls ambient light (the background, my thought).  2. flash power controls the light on the subject.  3. aperture controls the whole scene."

I photographed a fishing spider the other day and I think that I demonstrated part 3 of the above, "aperture controls the whole scene."  I really had no separation in the scene so varying shutter speed would have the same effect as varying aperture or flash power would have.

Fishing Spider

 To demonstrate this I set ISO at 400, and shutter speed at 1/125.  I varied the aperture as indicated below.

f/22

f/16

f/11

f/8

 

 

f/5.6

I mount two 420EX flashes on an off camera bracket made by Manfrotto.  I set the flash power to 1:1 to balance them.  I have discovered by experimentation that ISO 400, 1/250, f/11 works in this situation.  I am now starting to see why those settings work and that I can vary them when needed.  Before, when I shot an insect with white spots, I would have to use FEC (flash exposure compensation) to keep the white from being over exposed.  I am currently thinking that I can raise the f/ stop number to a smaller setting, decreasing the light on the entire scene, increasing the DOF a beneficial side effect, with equal results to dialing in negative FEC.  I just had a flash, no pun intended, of understanding this morning remembering the old days when I set the f/stop to use flash with my manual camera.  I think that it may be the same thing.  This setting was based on the distance to the subject.

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