Macro Lighting Best Practices I - in the field

[@TeresaTrimm]

My roommate saw your video with no sound (I had headphones on) and thought that I was listening to some 'hippie dude' that was giving me life lessons!! And macro lessons CAN apply to real-life!! I thought that you would appreciate that!!!

[@AllanWallsPhotography]

I am honored to be mistaken for a hippie, or wise enough to give anyone life lessons. You need to show your roomie a picture of a real hippie, she will never make that mistake again! Thanks for a good laugh!

[@TeresaTrimm]

@@AllanWallsPhotography Actually, she is a decade older than me and I am perilously close to 60! She is a hippy herself and really proud of it!! I am a relocated midwesterner (thank goodness) and an aspiring 'hippy'. A goal that I will probably never make, but as long as I keep trying!! Maybe it was the short beard in the video that I was watching at the time that made her think that...or maybe it was the headset over my ears that messed it up and she didn't say hippy at all!!! :D

[@robertstorost629]

Lots of great practical tips! By the way I admire your tremendous Poise Under Pressure. When you were showing how to use that packing material by taping it over the Speedlight, which is a great idea by the way, some lady near your microphone let out a huge laugh. It kind of came off as some sort of an opinion on your idea. You never skipped a beat. I had to rewind it several times, it just cracked me up. Keep up the great work I find something useful in every one of your videos.

[@AllanWallsPhotography]

Thanks Robert, her laugh sounded a lot more derisive on the video - I could never have kept a straight face if I'd heard it clearly!

[@BeetleBuns]

this video came just in time, I just got into macro this week

[@AllanWallsPhotography]

For real! Excellent! You should check out my back catalog - there must be 50 macro-related videos. Good luck and have fun!

[@messylaura]

great vid Alan

[@mariomifsud1302]

Very informative as usual.

[@numinoos]

Thank you Allan. I noticed you use a ring flash. I am also using the Nissan MF 18 ring flash and it has a built in diffuser. Do you have recommendations on using a ring flash for macro work. Greetings from Switzerland.

[@AllanWallsPhotography]

Hi Philippe, sorry for the delayed response. I do like to use a ring flash for my field work, mainly for its compact convenience, but lately I have moved away from in favor of less harsh light sources. I have found a low power off-camera speedlight with aggressive diffusion gives more natural looking results. I designed and built a clip-on ring flash diffuser that I thought could improve on that, but it really didn't;t. I may make a video of the ring flash diffuser, just to get people thinking how it could be modified and improved. But I think we are getting ready to see a big game changer in the macro-lighting world. The release of the MF12 micro flash units from Godox promises to be the affordable R1C1 system for mere mortals. I think it is going to change how we think about flash for macro. I will be reviewing the new units as soon as they arrive.

[@numinoos]

@@AllanWallsPhotography Many thanks for taking the time to answer; this is very helpful. I found a diffuser for this ring flash from a dental photographer. Will test it out in the field.

[@glarvenz]

Thank you! So helpful! What wattage is the little led cube you carry?

[@AllanWallsPhotography]

Hi Gail. The Lume Cube 2 that I use puts out 1500 lumens, so it around 25 watts. At that power the battery lasts about 6o minutes.

[@thestalicho]

Using the word Speedlight for flash gun is an advert for a Nikon Brand Speedlight Flash gun

[@AllanWallsPhotography]

Not really - "speedlight", with a lower case "s", has become an acceptable term to describe any compact standalone flash unit capable of on-camera use, and it is in common usage today. If I was talking about Nikon Speedlights (or Canon Speedlites, for that matter), I would use those terms.

[@wassim2364]

☕️👍Ty