The D-Flector in available light

I've had my ups and downs with the D-Flector being used with a flash. After discussing this with several people on this forum, I've come to the conclusion to really get the correct results, I need to use at least one more flash fired remotely.

Now I have to make a confession. When I first saw the D-Flector advertised in Popular Photography, I immediately thought I recognized the device that would serve what I always wished I had: a readily accessible, plain white background for available light photography of small objects and house plants with small flowers. I wasn't thinking, flash photography. So I ordered it and immediately realized that I could probably get spectacular photos if I used a flash. That's when I discovered I would need at least two flashes.

So today I went back to my original idea of using this device under available light, just to see how it would do. I prepared a detailed gallery explaining and illustrating my results. I put a lot of work into this and so I hope interested parties will visit it and take a look. The gallery:

http://www.pbase.com/fjp/df_2005_06_jun_26

Here is a photo of my setup using the Tamron 180mm f/3.5 Di Macro to photograph an African Violet plant, with the light coming in through a window behind the camera:

NIKON D70    ---    12mm    f/11.0    1/3s   

This worked pretty well with this plant. Here is my best results, with others very similar which you can see for yourself up on the gallery:

NIKON D2X    ---    180mm    f/11.0    1/3s    ISO 100

Then I decided to see what I could do with small objects I wanted to make look like they were floating in mid-air. I was less successful in achieving this. First here is the setup, which uses the 105mm f/2.8 Micro Nikkor:

NIKON D70    ---    24mm    f/11.0    1/3s   

Here are two images from this setup that I wanted to appear like they were "floating in mid-air." The first is a failure, the second, more of a success that just needs a little touching up with Photoshop.

NIKON D2X    ---    105mm    f/11.0    1/15s    ISO 100

NIKON D2X    ---    105mm    f/22.0    1/2s    ISO 100

The bottom line is, I found my solution for photographing my miniature flowers, but will need a second remote flash for making things "float".

 

Thanks for the appreciation. It sounds like you have an inkling of how much I slaved over these galleries. It was excruciating today. The response of pbase was beyond agonizingly slow. I don't understand how these images just pop up in this site, as they're going back to pbase to get them, right?