I carved out some time to use my new SB-700 (thanks Santa!) and my 105 macro, which I had given myself for my last birthday but has mostly collected dust since. I had tried some flower macros with the built-in popup flash, but they looked just awful. Too much direct reflection, so the flowers looked quite harsh. I wanted to experiment a bit, and for this setup I placed the flowerpot on a high-back, black, chair to provide a ‘blackdrop’ (see a previous incarnation here). I turned off all lights and handheld the flash, and found the best position was about 10 inches above, and slightly behind flower. This lit up the inside of the petals, projecting a very smooth, soft light. The key, I found, was to avoid direct line-of-sight reflections between the flash output and the lens. You can see the bright speckles in some of the shots – those are direct reflections.
The photos aren’t as sharp as I’d like, despite having used a tripod. Partly that was a result of the flower pot, which had a tendency to wobble and mess up my depth of focus.
With the power of a remote flash, I plan on spending 2012 exploring the world of macro. Something to look forward to, for sure.
