Macro: 360FGZ as main light & camera flash as fill?

Just wondering whether anyone has tried using their onboard camera flash as fill when using wireless mode for macro?

I don't particularly like the look of a ringflash (and don't have one anyway) but realise the fill should be directly above the lens, so I'm figuring the onboard flash will do nicely. Trouble is, can I decrease power on this independantly (using *istD), or do I need to use some ND filters on the front? I plan to create a softbox of some sort for it so it will be diffused anyway.

I'll be using a DFA 100mm f2.8 with this. Planning on shooting toadstool/other fungi for a Uni assignment initially.

Any help appreciated.

You are very likely to have a problem at very close distances of the on-camera flash being partially obscured by the lens.

A ring flash would be the perfect answer, plus a small XtraFlash to one side to improve the modelling if that is more to your liking. The results from this set up look pretty good to me.

I use this diffuser with a flash gun, either on camera, or using cable (it's a generic flashgun, so doesn't work wirelessly).

I find this give a good light, not too harsh, with some modeling.

Something like this...


(Was looking for an appropriate fungus, but too tired...)

Oh, hang on, I'll roll out this one again:



Dan

I have a softbox I created from acrylic for my 360FGZ, and last night I created a small one which fits over the on camera flash. I'll post some images later if they work at all, what I was interested in was if you know of an easy way to control the flash output from the camera, is this just a set GN or is there some function to change this? I couldn't find anything.

Oh, nice images too. I'm hoping to get a bit of rim lighting underneath the fungi.

Is flash compensation what you're after? I don't know about the K10d (it must have it somewhere) but its in the main menu on my ist.

Oh. ok, yep that's what I want, I'll have a look (I'm using *istD).
Thanks.

*ist-D was the only camera to have no flash compensation

The only thing you can do is choose whether it contributes to the main flash or not in wireless mode.

Matt

Wouldn't it be nice if Pentax would retrofit some of the K10D firmware goodies into the *istD.

I doubt that they will, but we can live in hope . . .

I think Pentax would rather sell more K10D's !