Photographed a nice group of bluebells last month. Tried a different technique. Used a tripod but lit the flowers with a Lume Cube with a diffuser attached to it. Used the phone app to increase/decrease light output.
Nikon D500, 85mm macro, ISO 800 F20 1/50
Comments and critiques appreciated. Anyone else tried a Lume Cube rather than a flash with flower images ?
Andrew,
Can’t help you with the flash question - but I can tell you the end result is pretty darn successful. The light is soft and clearly diffused - and there isn’t any harsh indicators of direction of light, contrasts, etc.
You’ve got good detail and focus in the majority of the bluebells and somewhat surprisingly you’ve got sufficient separation with the background - even at f/20; but it gave you enough depth within the cluster of flowers.
Very minor, picky… is that a dangling spider next to the two upper flowers? I’d clone that out, whatever it is. And perhaps you already did, but maybe some additional vignetting around the corners? no biggie there.
Lon
Andrew: A very nice bouquet of bluebells indeed and a fine capture. Your lighting looks especially good. It is a small thing but I would definitely make the spider go away. It’s evident even in the thumbnail and is a bit of an eye magnet for me. Good find and a very fine rendering. >=))>
Andrew, this looks way better than it would with flash, or some clumsy use of a reflector. The light looks very soft, diffuse and natural. The Lume cube worked very well for you. I like your colors, blues like this can be hard to do, but yours look good here. I would get rid of the spider too, as the others have said it’s an eye magnet. That background must have been relatively far away if it is this pleasingly OOF at f20.
Great lighting and nice group of flowers. Can’t help with the lighting question, but I will offer my opinion that the BG is a little distracting. I know from experience that shooting individual groups of bluebells is extremely difficult. Trying to get a clean BG is the major obstacle. Still a nice shot.
