Yellow Rose of Texas

slpollett

A co-worker received some yellow roses (her favorite flower) and asked me to take a few pictures for her. I happily obliged!

I'm no pro, so the lighting in the office presented quite a challenge for me--daylight coming in through a large window, fluorescent bulbs overhead, and bright white walls! (Shudder!) I tried my best with my flash attachment and a reflector, but I definitely could use some lighting lessons or mentoring!

Anyway, thanks for looking and any tips and/or cc are welcome!

1. I know the bottom of this picture is a little dark, but I like it anyway.


2.

3.

4.


Thanks again for looking.

Sherry
http://psphotos.smugmug.com/Sherry%20Shots

DaddyO

I think you did a fine job capturing these images under difficult lighting.
Thoughtful compositions, nice color, sharp. Nice control of DOF.

Could be that I could use some lessons from you on how to use my flash.

Michael

samsplace

Hi

I ran into the same problem. I went out and purchased a black card bord background from a local office supply for $1, then set my flash to fluorescent setting. Try it the next time.

I like the third shot the best.

Gil

Scott_Quier

+1 the above - I think you did a wonderful job on these.

Tip: When dealing with mixed lighting (sunlight through the window and fluorescent) try to eliminate one of them. In this case, maybe try to turn off the overheads. Then you would have nice light from the windows bouncing off the wall. Strategic placement of your subject could then result in some very nice soft light The nice thing is, your flash should be very close in color temperature to that of the light. But, the key is to reduce the number of different temperature/colors of light to the minimum possible.

slpollett

Thank you for the nice comments and the tips Michael, Gil, and Scott!

I did have a black reflector behind the flowers for some of the shots. (I kept trying with and without.) I put the blinds down at the window and closed them (tried them open a few times, too). I had another reflector to either block the overheads or bounce them and I tried direct flash and bouncing flash. I tried a diffuser instead of a reflector. I tried almost everything at one point EXCEPT turning off the overhead lights. I never even thought about that , so I'll try it next time!

Like I said, I really didn't know what I was doing with the lighting, so I tried a bit of everything and managed to get lucky a few times.:D I'll also need to read up on my flash unit and set it to flourescent next time. I didn't think about that either. Sheesh--newbies!

Thanks again for the tips.

Sherry

Scott_Quier

slpollett wrote:

Like I said, I really didn't know what I was doing with the lighting, so I tried a bit of everything and managed to get lucky a few times.:D I'll also need to read up on my flash unit and set it to flourescent next time. I didn't think about that either. Sheesh--newbies!

Thanks again for the tips.

Sherry

To help with your understanding of lighting, you might want to check out the strobist (link to his blog). I've recently been engrossed in what he has to teach and all I can say is WOW. Be warned, he does most/all his flash and exposure in manual mode, but most of his concepts can be directly translated to other modes.