Random flying things

[Nostromo]

This was more of a practice macro trip around some local woods and to also try out my modified pringles tube flash.
I'm not really a great fan of black backgrounds (well not for nature anyway), but i was more concerned with capturing my subject, than i was with how the background was going to turn out.
In hindsight i would have used a slightly larger aperture and maybe upped the iso to get a bit more ambient light in.
anyway here's what i came away with, after an hours walk in pretty chilly conditions (i wasn't expecting too find many bugs to be honest).

untitled-79 by Dominic Rodgers, on Flickr

untitled-74 by Dominic Rodgers, on Flickr

untitled-68 by Dominic Rodgers, on Flickr

untitled-67 by Dominic Rodgers, on Flickr

 

[GardenersHelper]

I think you did well finding those in chilly conditions. The last one appeals most to me; I like the clarity, detail and DOF coverage, and the to my eye nice fit of the subject with the surroundings.

As to black backgrounds, another thing you might want to experiment with is slowing down the shutter speed. If flash is the dominant light source then the effective shutter speed is the length of the flash pulse, which will be faster than the 1/200 sec you are using, and you may be able to slow the exposure down quite a lot. You only need (IMO) to take the edge of the black background so the natural light element of the exposure doesn't have to be (and shouldn't be) enough to give a good exposure to the subject. Obviously, with a slow shutter speed that would give problems. It needs some trial and error, and it is quite easy to get ghosting if you take it too far. What I tend to do is first take a shot or shots with a fast enough shutter speed to avoid ghosting and give a nice sharp image of the subject. If I'm getting a very dark background and the subject is still around I may then slow the exposure down and try again, so as to get at least a hint of colour into the background. If I do get ghosting then I've still got the faster shot to fall back on.