Can anyone recommend a good entry level bracket to get my flash off camera for doing flower and bug shots? I don't want to spend tons of money but I don't want a cheap piece of junk either. I have a 100mm macro lens and right now a XTi, but hoping to upgrade.
Thanks.
I have never had a problem with flash brackets. Whatever the quality, you must ensure that the hotshoe is compatable with the full fuction (contacts) of your flash gun.
Thanks, I will keep that in mind. I guess I should have also asked what kind of bracket should I get, I have never had a bracket. I would appreciate any tips, help anyone has to offer. Should I try to put the flash above or beside the lens?
I recently got the polaroid heavy duty L bracket from Amazon (cheap) but did replace the small fairly useless ballhead with a cheaper larger one I already had.
see pic of rig below.
Brian V.
shutterlove wrote:
Should I try to put the flash above or beside the lens?
The higher up it is, the more natural the result may look (L-shaped flash bracket) but the more shadows you will get from a single flash. I would not normally put a single flash below the level of the hotshot on the camera, if there is one. In outdoor situations you may have to get the light onto the subject by aiming it around e.g. foliage. In the portrait orientation, a bracket attached via the tripod socket can be rotated to point closer to the lens axis for closer work.
Other considerations are about the flash gun rather than the bracket.
How about a diffuser? Maybe I should get one of those too? I see a lot of the rigs have
homemade diffusers, but I am not that crafty! Love the picture you sent Brian, that helps
a lot to see it.
The small lumiquest softbox should be ok on my type of rig. The aim is to get the end of the diffuser as close to the end of the lens as possible.
Brian v.
Oh, I see. I did not know that you had to get the soft box and the lens that close, so putting
it on the flash that is mounted to the camera won't work? So I need a bracket too, correct?
Sorry for all the questions, this is new to me (as far as brackets and soft boxes go).
shutterlove wrote:
Oh, I see. I did not know that you had to get the soft box and the lens that close, so putting
it on the flash that is mounted to the camera won't work? So I need a bracket too, correct?
Sorry for all the questions, this is new to me (as far as brackets and soft boxes go).
You don't have to use a bracket and a softbox type diffuser, you can use a camera mounted flash with a diffusion sheet clipped to the front of the lens (eg plastic milk bottle or shampoo bottle plastic). The idea is to make sure the end of the lens is not in the way of the flash and to make the apparent size of the light source to subject size as large as possible.
Okay, really dumb question, do I need a cord if I get a bracket? I would imagine the answer is yes, to go from the hot shoe on the camera to the flash, correct? I assume it would not work with out that, right?
Brian V, can you still mount your set up to a tripod? I know so little about using a bracket! Just looked at all the rigs in the other forum, pretty cool! I assume I need a ball head to swivel the flash down to the lens?
Yes you still need a a connecting flash cord.
You can still tripod mount the setup- the bracket bolt has a female 1/4" thread underneath. Yes the ball head is used to both swivel and adjust the shooting angle of the flash.
Brian v.
Thanks for all your help Brian, I am going to try to get that bracket and go from there. I like it because it is simple and not too bulky. I think this will really help with the quality of my lighting on my macro shots. I already ordered a couple of diffusers to try too!
