Macro 1

For macro work the inflatable diffuser is cheap yet very effective.

It will fit any size flash head because of the elastic fastening and the curve of the front panel sends light downwards even when used with a 1.7 tele extender and a 10 dioptre lens on the front of the Tamron 90 mm macro lens.

Although the 3 times life size image is close to the camera there is still enough light from the flash for small apertures.

In the picture of crab apple blossom the flower spray was mounted with a crocodile clip and stood in a white polystyrene box with a blue cartridge paper used as a background.

The flash used was a Minolta 4000AF with the diffuser on it held at approximately 10 inches away to the left at about 30-40 degree angle.

As the diffuser head measures about 8 to 9 inches across the light spread was enough to diminish shadows and give a natural appearance to the flowers.

Not much there yet.

No sign of an early spring yet. The frosty mornings are still lasting, but thank God, no snow for us here. I pruned back the Buddleia very tight in the autumn and it has started to show a few small sproutings. The birds have not taken all the Cottoneaster berries but the rowan tree berries have all gone thanks to a neighbouring blackbird.

Wandered out and took some pics for something to do. Used the Tamron 90 mm macro lens and the Minolta 80px ring flash. It works quite well and allows me to use f32 stop which at full focus transforms to f40 I believe.

Had an idea about chocolates. If I once start eating them I just keep on going, so I decided to take pics of them instead .

I was 85 yesterday and had 2 boxes of choccys given to me for my birthday.

I decided as a New Years Resolution to limit myself to 1 per day [Choccy not box] It will be a strain but I will try my best to keep to it.

Trouble is Belgian chocolates are so delicious.

An idea.

I saw on the Sony DLSR forum an item about making a diffuser, so i thought I would see if I could do it cheaper.

I went down to Weston and bought a lidded beaker in the Pound Shop. The first step was to cut a hole in the top to take the flash. As I had bought it on impulse I had to judge the size. The flash would only just fit so I had to cut down in the rim.

This allowed it to fit as a push on.

I took pics with it set at 90 degress, 45 degres and then straight.

160th at f16 direct is fair enough with a good spread of light through the 'frosted' bottom of the beaker. The others had to be taken at f7.1 and although correctly exposed are not in my opinion showing enough depth of field.

I have come to the conclusion that if I want to do a bounce flash portrait I will either use a bare flash head on the ceiling of a room as at Trellis House where I simply bounced the flash. Or use for straight shots, my inflatable diffuser that was a sight cheaper than Gary Fong's offerings.

I was posting some abstracts on Flickr and noticed a reference to a fractal programme called Teira-Zon. It is a free to use site and will make fractal and abtract images. I downloaded and find it is very interesting. I like the way in which the colours are graded across the images.

Who would think that the far left image could be transformed into the abstract pic on the left.

I uploaded it - the abstract - on morguefile Monday 14th Jan and it was used on the Spanish medical site when I looked and searched on Google Tuesday morning.

Nice to know that it is not just useless rubbish I am making with my idle moment games.

Abstracts.

Been having a bit of fun making abstracts a la Damien Hirst from pics.
Found to my amazement that some of them posted on http://www.morguefile.com/ have been downloaded and used on a Spanish medical site.