Macro lighting technique with the FL-40 Flash

This project started as a comment, and then a challenge from my good friend Werner Aguilar, in Columbus, Georgia. I sent some sample images to him taken with the MCON35 and he asked about the lighting. I explained that I typically use 2 or 3 speed lights, umbrellas, etc. to get reduced shadows in small product illustration type shots on either a white or black background. While this is easy when you have all the equipment, Werner wondered what I could recommend for someone who had just an E-10 and FL-40, but no studio lights. And with that, the quest was on.

What I'm going to share here is a very inexpensive way to get some very good lighting for small objects with just one FL-40 flash, a Stroboframe and Canon cord set-up, a LumiQuest Promax Pocket Bouncer, some white foam core art board and maybe a couple little pieces of sticky back velcro (both sides).

If you are not familiar with foam core board, let me take just a moment to say you're missing one of the best tricks around. This super light weight, 3/16 inch thick, styrofoam center, paper covered stuff is great for making quick backgrounds, white boxes, reflectors, obstructors, props, stands, and a hundred other impromptu gizmos for the amateur or pro studio. It comes in a variety of colors and sizes from 14" X 22" to 30" X 40." At Office Depot, a package of three 20" X 30" sheets of white Hunt Sturdy Board (trade name), part number 900-114 costs about $10. You can find out more about the product on the Hunt web site.

Starting with a single 14" X 17" piece of board, I constructed a reflector like the one described in the drawing below. And no, I didn't get it right the first time . . . . or the second time for that matter.

The foam core board is very easy to work with. You can cut it with a graphic arts knife, box knife or single edge razor blade. Here is the layout for the reflector. A trick for making the round ends of the center cut out is to draw the half circles using your E-10 lens shade as a template. Be sure to only cut half way through the board on the top cut - this is a hinge.

Pick a side of the board to work on. This will be the back of the board.
Draw a line across the 14 inch dimension of the board, 3 inches down from the top.
Draw another line right down the center of the board.
On the vertical center line, make two marks - one 6 1/4 inches down from the top of the board, and the second 10 1/4" down.
Using your E-10 lens shade as a template, draw two circles, The top of the first circle should touch the mark at 6 1/4 inches. The bottom of the second circle should touch the mark at 10 1/4".
The circles should overlap and be centered on the center line of the board.
Draw a line connecting the right sides of the two circles and another connecting the left sides of the circles. Now it's time to do a little cutting.
Cut out the center first. It should look like the drawing above.
Next, cutting about half way into the foam board, make a cut all the way down the line you drew across the top of the board. DO NOT cut all the way through - this will be a hinge.

Congratulations! You now have a macro lighting reflector. Now let's mount it.

Just to make things easy to work with, you might want to mount your E-10 with Stroboframe and FL-40 on a tripod. Slip the reflector over the lens of the E-10 and position it as shown below.

Take lens shade off the lens when you slide on the reflector. After it's in place, put the lens shade back on.

You may also want to cut out a little notch at the very top of the reflector to clear the Canon cord as shown here. If everything is measured correctly, the top of the card will align with the top of the Stroboframe, and the reflector will sit at a 45 degree angle.

The ideal angle for the reflector is 45 degrees. If you happen to have a drafting 45 right triangle laying around, you can check your angle like this.

By this time I'm sure you're starting to see how all this is going to work.

Back view of the FL-40 Macro Lighting set-up. You can just see the two Velcro tabs holding the card to the Stroboframe.

As you might guess, the lens shade is an absolutely essential part of the set-up. Without it, the light from the FL-40 and Pocket Bouncer will come pouring directly into the lens.

In this front view, you can see the notch at the top for the cord, as well as a properly attached the lens shade. The reflector board in this shot has dropped down a bit form the ideal 45 degree angle, that's why there is a gap between the bottom of the lens and the clearance hole. If you have this problem, use a piece of adhesive tape stuck to the back of the reflector and to the lens shade.

So what can it do and how can you use it? It's more useful than I originally expected! Take a look at these for starters.

You can get repeatable results like this.

These first two shots were taken in a table top foam core studio setup. The only light used to make these images came from the FL-40.

And like this . . . .

In the shot above, I "spilled" light onto the black background to bet a gray variegation effect. The subject was close and being illuminated from above and below the lens axis. You can just make out the reflection of the reflector in the curved surfaces of the glass (look at the bulges in the bottom stem).

The shot below was taken off hand. I'll be honest and tell you that it's one of a bracket of shots I took messing around with the exposure compensation.

And like this. . . .to illustrate just a few.

This shot was inside my wife's china cabinet. I just opened the doors and picked a few things. In this case the light from the lower part of the reflector came up through the glass shelf.

Here is the setup for the black background shot of the glass fairy. That's black form core behind and below the glass object, and white foam core to the right.

You can get a wide range of effects by using different combinations of colored foam core board behind and below the objects you are photographing. White foam core on both sides will help to soften the lighting even more, it's like putting your subject inside a white tent or box. Notice that the fairy in the shot above is raised up off the table. This is to allow the camera and reflector to be moved closer, and to allow light from the lower part of the reflector to be bounced up into the subject area.

This setup works well with the MCON35. The only thing you need to do is construct some type of lens shade like this one. This is nothing more than several strips of black electrical tape on a piece of plane paper, cut to the right shape and wedged between the reflector and lens.

When you do this, be careful to check the shot several times in the viewfinder or on the camera display to assure the reflector is keeping the light out of the lens, but not causing any vignetting. At higher zoom magnifications, this is less of a problem.

One of the wonderful things about this setup is that the FL-40 flash head can be moved left or right, or tilted up at various angles to produce different lighting effects. You may want to move the head to the left by 15 or 20 degrees to produce a stronger sense of light direction. You may want to "spill" a lot more light on a white background to produce a high key shot.

On shots like these, I recommend working with a fixed WB of 6500 and a fixed shutter speed of 125 or more to eliminate ambient light. Because the flash is metered through the lens, you can pick what ever f-stop you want and control the depth of field. This gives you incredible creative control. Generally, I kept the camera in spot mode, you might want to try center weighted spot too.

If you find a look that you like, but aren't getting the exposure you want, just use the flash compensation from the camera's main menu. You have plus or minus 2 full EVs to play with - which I found to be more than enough.

On a tripod in a setup like you see below, you will want to experiment with angles and distances to find the look you like best.

Because the reflector is attached to the Stroboframe, it can easily be used off the tripod. I found that it makes a great close-up fill flash outdoors.

In this shot, the ambient light was heavy overcast, the FL-40 and reflector provided the primary lighting - in fact it overpowered the ambient light to produce this near shadowless image.

In this shot I backed off the power of the FL-40 to provide soft fill in the foreground. The ambient light was strong direct sun - very high contrast. The reflected light filled in the shadow areas without casting a second shadow behind the subject. Not a bad trick to have in your bag.

As bring this page to a close, let me just share a few thought about what this reflector setup is, and is not. It is a very flexible lighting arrangement, using only one light source to produce fairly flat, low shadow lighting for close subjects. It is reliable and repeatable, but like any other trick setup, keep notes about distances and settings (like keeping the recipe for your favorite cookies). It is a way to take advantage of the incredible power E-10 and FL-40 through the lens metering system.

This shot was with the MCON35. All the light in this shot came from one place - the FL-40 sitting on the Stroboframe.

More Sample shots.

It's not fool proof, point and shoot, no thinking required. Quite the opposite - this is something that takes a fair bit of thinking and shot planning and gives you good results in return.

It's not intended to replace or even compete with real studio lighting. If you have power packs, flash heads, soft boxes and a studio full of goodies, by all means, go use them. This project is for all the folks that don't have those tools at their disposal.

It's not intended to replace or compete with a ring light. That's a totally different (and more expensive) tool. The only similarity between a ring light and this reflector setup is that most of the light on the subject is projected coaxial with the line of the lens.

It's not intended to illuminate objects at extreme macro distance, like 2 inches from a stack of close-up rings on a MCON35, although in theory it could be tweaked to do that.

And finally, just for the record, in the body of this text, the term "macro" means distances defined by the capabilities of the E-10 and MCON35. Please don't send me Email with your definition of macro as it relates to film. I understand all that and this is a different subject.

That's it! You can take it from here. Experiment, modify, innovate, and most of all have a really good time doing it!