Yellow daisy shot using a Orbis Ring Flash in the background and a Lumiquest Softbox III as main light







Today I had to take some studio shots and at the end of the session I stole one of my wife's flowers and had some fun. While taking some pictures of it with the Orbis Ring Flash I had the idea of using that very light modifier as a background, centering the flower in the black hole that is commonly used to stick the lens.

The how-to... Lumiquest Softbox III
on camera left, Orbis Ring Flash
as background



I adjusted the camera on the tripod to have the flower exactly in the middle of the black hole and did few test shots. The ide was cool but I needed an extra light to bring up the flower a bit. All that backlight couldn't do it by itself.

So I added an extra SB800 with a Lumiquest Softbox III and..voilá

Tokina AF100mm f2.8 AT-X Pro D Macro

Today I had a bit of fun with my new macro lens, the Tokina 100 f2.8 AT-X Pro D. It feels good in your hands, sturdy and with a professional finish, I like the lens hood too, looks pretty cool when mounted, I left it on all the time.

The lens is a joy to use, the autofocus system is ok, a tad slow but I mostly shot in manual while doing the extreme close ups. As usual, wide open is quite difficult to find the right focusing spot, especially if you are a dork like me and don’t use the tripod, but his is truly not an issue, is normal.

As far as Photozone concerns, probably among the most qualified sources on the internet for camera lens reviews, the resolution is excellent from wide open up to f11, it is ok at f16 and goes down dramatically due to diffraction at very small apertures. Today I used it between f2.8 and f14, and the out of focus area you get at f2.8 is very nice, in fact I’m very much looking forward to use this lens for my next portrait session.

Here’s few images of today’s session: being able to stay as close as 30cm from the subject with an effective 150mm lens can deliver pretty impressive close ups, you will tell me if you like the result