What do you do when a bug is faster than your flash? *confused*

TtamNedlog

Hey, I just discovered this website the other day and being interested in macro photography, I figured I'd sign up.

I just got a Sigma 105 macro in the mail today, my first macro lens. I stuck it on my D80 and fired off a couple of test shots with it, here's one:





Rather boring and grainy picture, but I was just fooling around and seeing how hard it would be to focus at 5 inches heh. I was also mainly seeing what sort of shutter speeds I would be getting at ISO 3200 in fairly bright daylight with f/11.. Why on earth would I use such a high ISO you ask? I'm going to be attempting a macro bug project for a photo class using 3200 B&W film. I might not need a flash...





Annnnnnnyway, to get to the point of this thread. I was also trying to see how flash would work with 3200, but when I tried taking a picture with the flash, the fly moved before the shutter snapped! :huh I thought maybe I had spooked him, but I tried several times and every time the flash fired, the fly managed to move before the picture was taken. Every shot either had a blurred fly, or the fly managed to get out of the frame entirely!

I was simply using the D80's built-in flash, so maybe that had something to do with it since it wasn't a fancy hotshoe flash or something. Have any of you ever experienced this? What did you do? Are there any flash settings I can change to, uh, speed things up? *scratches head* When I re-attempt this with film, I'll be using an SB-800 speedlight.

EDIT: To clarify, I'm not trying to get a stop motion shot (although that'd be cool). I'm just wondering how/why this creature has reflexes fast enough to move during the several-thousandth of a second gap between the flash going off and the shutter closing. I wonder if my flash was firing twice for some reason...

Lord Vetinari

Interesting
These dolichopid type flies (metallic looking jobs with long legs) are quite sensitive to flash. This has nothing to do with the flash durations you are using as it actually takes off when the preflash fires and by the time the main flash goes off the fly is airborne. So if you need a flash you'll have to figure out how to use the flash in manual mode so that it does not pre-flash (not sure that is possible with on board flash).
Anyway I often shoot natural light shots in shaded light at ISO 400/800, 1/200 in shutter priority and get reasonable apertures- in bright sun you can shoot iso 100, F11, 1/200th at 1:1.
Brian V.

TtamNedlog

Pre-flash! That's right, the whole TTL thing. Yeah I can set the built-in flash to manual mode... I wouldn't know what settings to use to avoid a blown out picture though. Either way I guess it will all be different when using a speedlight. I stumbled across one of your DIY flash diffuser guides a while back Lord V. I might give that a shot.

Hopefully in the coming weeks when I wrap up that project, I'll have some worthwhile pictures to share. Maybe I can redeem myself for starting things off with this boring one heh.

Robinivich

As has been mentioned, pre-flash, I find that the jumping spiders are the ones that really go crazy, they'll be well out of the frame in the time between preflash and flash!

You can also try, if you find manual fiddly or something, the exposure lock should fire the preflash then store that in memory for a while, so next time it's only the flash proper that goes. Mind you, I'm speaking from a canon standpoint, I have no reason to believe nikon wouldn't have something similar.

Figuring out what was happening with the jumping spiders was such a funny moment, goes to show exactly how fast these things can move!

On the subject of abstracts with ISO3200 B&W film, the nice thing about flash is you could, if you try hard enough, make the background pure black (difficult at that sensitivity, you'd need a reeeeaaally high shutter speed with FP flash), other than that, ISO3200 should have you covered for light.

Skippy

TtamNedlog wrote:

Pre-flash! That's right, the whole TTL thing. Yeah I can set the built-in flash to manual mode... I wouldn't know what settings to use to avoid a blown out picture though. Either way I guess it will all be different when using a speedlight. I stumbled across one of your DIY flash diffuser guides a while back Lord V. I might give that a shot.

Hopefully in the coming weeks when I wrap up that project, I'll have some worthwhile pictures to share. Maybe I can redeem myself for starting things off with this boring one heh.

Hi there TtamNedlog, Welcome aboard the Dgrin Forum
I'm glad you found the forum, and found an answer to your problem.

Macro's not easy to do, though Brian always make it look easy-peezy
Don't be too hard on yourself.... hopefully we'll see some more shots from you in the very near future .... Skippy
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