For Brian

[rpcrowe]

Brian,

I thought of you when I saw this YouTube video. It is a neat way to use the built-in camera flash in macro photography along with using reflectors. I think that your camera has a built-in flash...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Oq5R8NYGVM

It certainly doesn't require the expenditure of any vast sums of money to achieve this setup....

[JBW]

Brian,

I thought of you when I saw this YouTube video. It is a neat way to use the built-in camera flash in macro photography along with using reflectors. I think that your camera has a built-in flash...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Oq5R8NYGVM

It certainly doesn't require the expenditure of any vast sums of money to achieve this setup....

Thanks for the thought Richard. I definitely need some sort of simple diffuser. I don't have the luxury of shooting frozen bugs where I live but something a little smaller and a lot less scary would certainly come in handy.

[xpatUSA]

. . . I definitely need some sort of simple diffuser. I don't have the luxury of shooting frozen bugs where I live but something a little smaller and a lot less scary would certainly come in handy.

Brian, I'm thinking that 'diffuser' and 'smaller' may not go hand-in-hand, unfortunately. Please allow me to explain as simply as I can:

Think of the example target - a beetle with shiny wing casings. Of course, shooting with just an in-camera flash - even fairly close - gets a blown-out bright spot in your image, also known as a specular reflection. Unfortunately, adding a smaller diffuser over the flash improves matters very little - which is why his diffuser is on the lens, is so big and is shaped so as to almost wrap around the target with the reflector completing the job.

That video was very well made! OT but that looks like a Raynox close-up filter on his lens.

[rpcrowe]

Brian, do you have a hotshoe flash? I just picked up a tiny Viltrox flash ( http://www.ebay.com/itm/381673628960...%3AMEBIDX%3AIT ) which I am going to combine with my Canon 270EX Mk2 with one on each side of the camera each modified by a small diffuser... The flash ran $24 USD with shipping from China. It is very accurate in ETTL mode and also has a manual mode. The diffusers cost $1.14 USD each and do a rather nice job ( http://www.ebay.com/itm/252476530511...%3AMEBIDX%3AIT ). I have a bar on which I am mounting the camera with two really small and inexpensive ball heads ( http://www.ebay.com/itm/371823981886...%3AMEBIDX%3AIT ) one on each side of the camera.

The entire rig with a pair of Vilrox flashes, two diffusers and two ball heads, cost a total of $53.32 USD. I had the bar in my junk box but, that could easily be fabricated from a piece of aluminum.

I have owned the 270EX-II for years and have recently purchased the Vilrox. I have one of the diffusers and am waiting for the other one to arrive and also the two ball heads. I will post a picture of the rig when the parts arrive and will also post some images shot with the rig. I am thinking (hoping) that it will be a good combination which will be small and lightweight. I should be able to play around with the light.

BTW: I will trigger these flashes with my onboard Canon Mark-2 flash...