It All Came to Me in a Flash

Out on our back porch we have some strawberry plants in pots. Not sure how they got there but they come back every year. I have only ever eaten a couple tiny little ones. Every spring and summer I water them faithfully. I have always thought their flowers are quite pretty so today I decided to take some photos of them. I went out there with my macro lens and picked out a nice one. Unfortunately the sun was beating right on it and the light was harsh. Right about then the breeze started to pick up too. That little flower looked like it was shivering the breeze was knocking it about so. I was thinking about going inside and maybe waiting a while to see if things changed. Well I knew if I did that, things wouldn't change or I would get doing something else and forget to come back out. So I had to do something. The flower has to be pretty much still with macro photography because focus is so critical, just by blowing in the wind it'd jumping in and out of focus. So I took the pot in the house and plunked it on the kitchen table (my studio). Now there was no breeze blowing it about. Now to light it. I don't have a macro flash so I had to improvise a bit. I shot the flash through a white umbrella set up above the flower pointing down at it. It provided nice bright and diffuse light.

I shot this at 1/100th, f/11 with my 100mm macro lens. I focused manually which was somewhat of a fluke as my eyes just aren't what they used to be. I still don't entirely trust autofocus. The flash was controlled by the camera wirelessly. 

If you notice the little box linked to strobist.com. It is to a blog run by a fellow by the name of David Hobby. It is all about using flash off the camera. I put the link there because I learned a lot from it and even if I am not getting what he is saying on occasion, I always find him entertaining. Take a look, it's free.