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[OM] Ring flash or two-flash setup?

Subject: [OM] Ring flash or two-flash setup?
From: Robert Ashdown <RobertA@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 19:16:44 +1000
Re John Gardner's email on his macro setup.

One of the reasons I like this list is the fact that it is really
illuminating (pun, pun) to hear how other oly-heads solve a problem that
you thought you alone in the world had wrestled with!!

I mainly photograph small animals such as lizards, frogs, insects etc
and have spent a few years trying to get a useable system. I haven't
tried a ring-flash, as I don't like the circular reflections in animals'
eyes, however another oly user here at the Museum uses one on his OM2N
for insects and spiders (the circular reflections look interesting in
the eyes of things such as jumping spiders).

I started out with a T20 on one side, attached to a small slave unit,
hand-held. I had a bracket on the other with a small manual flash
connected to my OM2N's x socket. Like Gary Reese I found that you really
can work out the settings for manual macro flash.

However, after lots of fiddling, I currently use a T32 on the left on a
bracket, connected to the hot shoe (i.e. TTL with 5-pin cable). On the
right I use a T20 on a bracket on a small slave. Like John I can use it
for the background. I designed and built a rack so that the T32 can be
used at a variety of angles and distances, including when 3 extension
tubes are in use. I was amazed at how well the TTL flash worked. If you
are not so concerned about the background ambient light levels, you can
dial in -1 or -2 stops on the comp. dial and this will fool the flash
into delivering less light (won't work as fill flash in daylight when
you want ambient back-ground light to be right, but it will work really
well with macro). If you have, for example, a spider with a black
background, when the spider r doesn't fill the frame, the flash will
read all the black and put out loads of light. By dialing -1 etc., the
spider in the centre will not be over-exposed.

I use a 50mm F3.5, which is an awesome lens (IMO), I've never seen one
of the fabled 90mm. I don't mind getting close to the animals I shoot,
but the Museum photographers here use N@k*n 100mm micro lens (and,
interestingly, one uses his F3 with 2 small manual flashes either side
on swivel brackets, with tables and marks set up for different distances
etc. like Gary.)

The advantages of a 90mm can be obvious, I know a guy bitten by a
venomous snake in Western Australia while attempting to photograph it
with a zuiko 3.5 (the lens of course is indestructible!).

Hope this is of some help George! Macro photography is totally addictive
(imagine the delight of guiding your friends and family through a slide
show of 65 local grasshopper species - mine flee in panic!!)

Cheers all
Robert Ashdown
Australia (still attempting to gather cash for an OM4!!)

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