Flash Question

Sharks

Hi everyone

I use "Canon 60D + Canon MP-E 65 + Yonguo YN560III + Home Made Flash Diffuser" setup. But this setup desaturate the color as you can see in the examples;

My Flash Setup;



Natural Color (Almost same angel, lens and camera settings);




Wyh this problem occurs and how i fix that ?

Not: My English not good, sory

Thanks

Sharks

This is my setup;

DSC_0046 by Can Tunçer, on Flickr

DSC_0051 by Can Tunçer, on Flickr

DSC_0052 by Can Tunçer, on Flickr

DSC_0053 by Can Tunçer, on Flickr[/b]

Stumblebum

What bracket is this? Can you give a link to where you got it from?

As for desaturation, you are correct. Too much of it takes the life out of the shot so there is a thin line between right and wrong. I am learning as well....so that's what I know for now! Cheers!

basflt

two ways
1 correct in image-editor or Lightroom

2 grey card trick
i dont have a grey card myself , but a shot of my chrome Zippo works just fine for me

take a shot of anything that looks neutral gray ( outdoors ) and set whitebalance in your camera to that shot

and ,
make sure the paper on the diffuser is white

edit
you wil notice that when you adjusted white balance in camera ( #2 ) correcting will be easier ( #1 )

and , needless to say but , shoot in RAW , not JPG


additional note ;
my English is no good either who cares !

Sharks

Stumblebum wrote: »

What bracket is this? Can you give a link to where you got it from?

As for desaturation, you are correct. Too much of it takes the life out of the shot so there is a thin line between right and wrong. I am learning as well....so that's what I know for now! Cheers!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hakuba-Flash-Bracket-Metal-Ball/dp/B009VPO24A

I chance the standart head to little ball head

Sharks

basflt wrote: »

two ways
1 correct in image-editor or Lightroom

2 grey card trick
i dont have a grey card myself , but a shot of my chrome Zippo works just fine for me

take a shot of anything that looks neutral gray ( outdoors ) and set whitebalance in your camera to that shot

and ,
make sure the paper on the diffuser is white

edit
you wil notice that when you adjusted white balance in camera ( #2 ) correcting will be easier ( #1 )

and , needless to say but , shoot in RAW , not JPG


additional note ;
my English is no good either who cares !

I shoot RAW all the time. I correct the Photoshop CS6 but some reason color ve contrast not good.

I use same setup for Sigma 150mm F/2.8 macro no problems like that

basflt

that says nothing
use a different WB setting the Sigma and the MPE as they are totally different

auto-white balance does weird things sometimes

it is a must to correct it in your image editor ( ACR in this case )

i dont see anything odd , except mayby too much flash
use some more paper , and or reduce amount of flash

Sharks

Ok thanks for suggestion

Stumblebum

Sharks wrote: »

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hakuba-Flash-Bracket-Metal-Ball/dp/B009VPO24A

I chance the standart head to little ball head

Thanks man! I can't find it in Amazon-US I guess. Still trying to find best fit for me. Who knew this piece of gear would be so hard to get!

Lord Vetinari

Stumblebum wrote: »

Thanks man! I can't find it in Amazon-US I guess. Still trying to find best fit for me. Who knew this piece of gear would be so hard to get!

The polaroid heavy duty L bracket is very similar but again the supplied ballhead is not good and you may need to change it (think it's available on amazon).
Picture of it below with a different ballhead fitted


Brian V.

Canon 600D macro rig + butterfly by Lord V, on Flickr

Lord Vetinari

Sharks - my setups are fairly similar and I do not get a problem with desaturation (I do shoot RAW). I always use the flash in a similar position to your first shot. The diffuser head is slightly to the side of the lens.
If you use the flash in the position shown in your last shot I think there is a good chance you will be shooting some light straight in to the lens which will desaturate the image.
I suspect the diffuser is a bit large for use with the MPE- 65 but would have been fine with a normal macro lens. This makes it a bit unwieldy to get a good position at higher magnifications.

Brian V.

Stumblebum

Thanks Brian!!

Sharks

Lord Vetinari wrote: »

Sharks - my setups are fairly similar and I do not get a problem with desaturation (I do shoot RAW). I always use the flash in a similar position to your first shot. The diffuser head is slightly to the side of the lens.
If you use the flash in the position shown in your last shot I think there is a good chance you will be shooting some light straight in to the lens which will desaturate the image.
I suspect the diffuser is a bit large for use with the MPE- 65 but would have been fine with a normal macro lens. This makes it a bit unwieldy to get a good position at higher magnifications.

Brian V.

Thank you very much for your answer, Lord Vetinari.

I think this is the my problems: "If you use the flash in the position shown in your last shot I think there is a good chance you will be shooting some light straight in to the lens which will desaturate the image."

I try different angel and material my setup. Thanks again

Sharks

An additional question, ı use Yonguo YN-560III maneul (Not TLL) flash and connect my flash for 60D, ı use nikon compatible flash cable. This may be a reason for color problem ? Because the 60D does not detect the flash electronically.

Again sory for my bad English

Lord Vetinari

Sharks wrote: »

An additional question, ı use Yonguo YN-560III maneul (Not TLL) flash and connect my flash for 60D, ı use nikon compatible flash cable. This may be a reason for color problem ? Because the 60D does not detect the flash electronically.

Again sory for my bad English

Possibly might cause problems for the colour settings. I use AWB set on the camera but always change the colour temperature to 5500'C during RAW processing for flash shots. If you shoot RAW and use canon's DPP RAW converter , you could always change the setting to flash in the options for DPP

Brian V.

lifeinfocus

Excellent learning session. I have one other question. Do any of you use a color card to capture accurate color? I shoot a lot of flowers and that is often a problem.

I use a grey card or expo disc to set white balance. I really like using the expo disc when a flash is off camera or for just ambient light.

IPClark

I use a big daft softbox for my shots. It's big enough to put the light at the end of the lens and for the most part doesn't seem to hinder my photographing of bugs. Can't get in tight spots but that isn't often a requirement for me at least.

As for WB, I shoot auto WB and correct in Lightroom. I generally bring my colour temp down to around 4500K and I will admit to using a little camera correction (reintroduce a touch of blue and reduce red) as the flash tends to warm things up quite a lot in comparison to what I was seeing with my own eyes. Macro is too dynamic to fight getting it spot on in camera for every shot.

basflt

^^^
using a grey card does help
it wont change the raw , but it makes it easier to correct in LR
because white balance in LR usually is set to "as shot"

i dont have a grey card , i use my chrome colored Zippo for it
works fine for me , better then auto-white balance

GOLDENORFE

I have a custom white bsllance set on camera for my flash , when I remember to set it. Lol
Think it's 4750k. To cool down wb caused by my diffuser .
As for leaf colour , looks like flash if possibilly bouncing back giving that appearance. Try altering flash angles

DeeBug

Lord Vetinari wrote: »

The polaroid heavy duty L bracket is very similar but again the supplied ballhead is not good and you may need to change it (think it's available on amazon).
Picture of it below with a different ballhead fitted


Brian V.

Canon 600D macro rig + butterfly by Lord V, on Flickr

Hi Brian,if you mind me asking,where did you get the ball head from as two I have picked up were crap

Cheers Davy