Lighting for Close Up Photography
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CANON R5, 100.2.8 1 second at f/32 using Canon Ring Light
No matter the time, the place or the weather, one always has the opportunity to do close up photography. There is always a subject to found in the fascinating world of the small, and all one has to do is see it.
However, when we get close to something, we become a block to the light that exists, or perhaps we are walking in some woods, with a heavy canopy or have the dreaded dappled light. Maybe we are inside for whatever reason and the light striking the side of an orange catches our eye.
We get our camera and maybe the tripod and make some exposures and yet we come away underwhelmed. Why is that?
It’s All About the Light
Light as we all should know by now delivers three key elements to photography. For a quick refresher they are;
Direction
Quality
Colour
Direction and colour most folks get automatically but Quality continues to create some confusion so for simplicity sake, equate Quality with how soft or how hard the light is in terms of the shadows it creates and the textures it reveals. Dead flat light is a quality, but a very staid and very boring one. So to create the best in close up images, we need to be in charge of the light.
Many Routes
There are numerous routes to managing light and we have heard of all of them, possibly to the point of nausea, so let me save your time and my own and say that to manage light, you must be in full control of the light. As you have zero to minimal control of the light that exists, the optimal way to manage light is to bring your own.
How to Light
I have been and likely will always be a proponent of flash. It is portable, fast, lightweight and allows for exposures to be completed without undesired subject movement or exposure time requirements that may outlast you.
A long exposure needs a tripod or other stable support. Optimal colour needs a low ISO. Smaller subjects mean you are close and that means that you need lots of depth of field. You can make excuses until the cattle sprout wings but the most efficient method of managing light is flash.
Flash? Really?
Objectionists will complain, quite rightly, that flash can look harsh and unnatural. This is absolutely so when the person using it has not invested time in skill development or assumes that automatic everything is the solution to all problems. I discount this whining as one cannot argue with the irrational. Flash can look beautiful and flexible and artistic and to make it so, all you need is you. And of course, the right flash.
The Right Flash
The first consideration here is what is the right flash. Older style ring lights produce very even light and while low in output can drive enough light for large depth of field. However, the issue is that the light becomes flat. Flat equals two dimensional and that is technically and artistically speaking, sub-optimal. Aka boring.
There are however ring flash units where the power can be varied to create different lighting ratios between the flash tubes. This creates dimensionality and I will say it is a necessity for quick and efficient work. You could use an off camera flash and a set of reflectors, but at that juncture, you are carrying a bag holding either an erector set of clamps and stands or a similar Meccano set and since creative toys are long since dead, you will be paying a fortune on eBay. So much easier to get a ring light with at least two flash tubes and variable power.
TTL Flash is the Golden Ticket
TTL Flash by design and function turns the flash off when a proper exposure has been created. This proper exposure is measured EXACTLY the same way as your camera creates an ambient exposure. The overall image averages to a luminosity level of middle grey. TTL Flash can also offer Flash Exposure Compensation, which is the Flash Equivalent of ambient exposure compensation. This is readily available in a $100 Godox regular flash so there is no need to go into bankruptcy if you want to work with off camera flash and a reflector.
A multi tube ringflash will provide the same functionality. There are different types. The most common has two flash tubes fixed inside a ring that goes around the lens covered by a diffusion filter. This does not soften the light, it merely spreads it out. Long time readers have heard me say at length that diffusers only diffuse light, they do not soften it, but while there are a lot fewer camera shops, there is YouTube, filled with people who would not know how to use flash if their very lives depended upon it. More flexible ring flashes use separate flash heads that can rotate on the ring so you can also manage the direction of the light, and indeed if you want to control the colour of the light, you could affix a tiny piece of gel to a head, or even two different gels on two different heads. You are the artist, there are no rules here.
Those who get very serious about this might engage in a contraption that uses the multi head ring flash unit without the standard ring instead allowing the distance, position and angle to be controlled by the photographer. I am one of those people. Yes it is slightly more cumbersome than a regular ring flash, but as I want to be in control of the light, it gives me more control.
While this frame setup might be overkill for many, it gives you a sense of how multiple small, TTL exposure controlled flash heads with flexible positioning can go a long way to accomplishing your goals.
You can also experiment with shutter open times to allow some of the ambient light to bleed into the overall flash exposure. This can very successfully help create an even more “natural” looking image. The example image that opens this article was done this way.
Some Options
Godox has a manual ring flash called the MF-R76 that has two heads in a single ring. This unit is also available in a TTL version for more money. Another good ring flash is the Nissin MF-18. Some camera makers also make their own ring flashes, but they tend to be very expensive (brand tax).
Wrap Up
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