Photos of a ladybug, taken with my new macro ring flash on

(Eng.) Photos of a ladybug, taken with my new macro ring flash on

I bought a macro ring flash, last week and I think it does it’s job. However, I find it to give more reflections than I’d like, as it does on the back of the ladybug that I photographed, as you can see on the photos below. After playing some with the flash, I wanted to try a diffuser on it. I made one of paper and taped it to the flash, to get a less direct- and bright light.

What’s the point of getting a dedicated macro ring flash, you might ask yourself? When shooting macros, it’s easy making shades on your object, and since you need light to make a good photo, using a ring flash is one way of getting proper lighting. When standing just centimeters/inches from the object, wether it’s a bug or a flower, the built-in flash will shoot above it. Hence, a ring flash will diminish shades and make your object stand more out in the photo.

If a flash has too hard lighting, then the result won’t be that good. So in order to take good photos, you could make a diffuser for your flash. I learned the trick of using paper to diffuse, by watching a series on photograhing on TV. Photographer Tom Ang travelled Singapore to shoot the different aspects of life there. He worked with both professional- and amateur photographers, and he taught one of the latter to use paper infront of the flash, for better photos.