Advice on Reducing Shadows when using my Oly 5050?

[christine s]

Hi,

A few photos taken using my 5050.
I use my UK400R for light when using supermacro , works great
but very hard to stop getting shadows.
Any ideas ?

[Tim Ingmire]

Hi Christine,

I can't see any photos.

[Deck Bitch]

very nice pics well done

[recurve]

The pictures look good. I suspect you are using the on-camera flash?

If this is the case then I think you are basically running into the problem that the lens isn't looking where the light is being put by the flash because you are so close to the subject.

The problem can probably only be trully sorted by using independant flash units, aimed carefully at the point your lens is focused.

Woz has come up with a nice line in clear 'Otter' boxes that you can house a slave flash in, so you really don't need to go down the route of several hundred pound strobes. I will try to find the web address of such a project, I know I've got it saved on ONE of my computers.

HTH, but don't fret, shadows can create texture in macro work.

Phil

[Norseman]

Let me start with saying I like your pics. The anemone is cool.

I think the only way you can avoid shadows is to buy a second light...

Actually a few things might help:

- Diffuser on the torch might spread the light more, giving softer shadows.
- Less depth, ie lower F-stop numbers, might give you generally brighter backgrounds. Though out of focus.

I think the best way to deal with shadows is to circumnavigate the problem with the standard UW photography advice: Single out your subject, shoot from the bottom up leaving water behind it or generally a longer distance to the background. Combining it with a high F-stop, F8.0 will help you. That way you get ONLY your tiny subject lit up and the background will end up black or green or blue (well, not in UK waters ) If the light is sufficiently softened you should get satisfying results. I have a feeling normal dive-torches too often will give you a too intense beam leaving stark shadows and burnt out parts of the image.

And of course I'd like to give an example, though this is taken with on board flash:



Kyrre