Making a flash bracket

[andrew_vera]

I am in the process of making a John Shaw's butterfly bracket for use

with my Nikon N2000, 75-150 zoom & 3t filter, SB18 flash and SC17

cord. I am fairly new to macro photography and not sure what impact

the orientation of the flash has on closeups.

 

My question is:

 

In use, does the flash head have to be vertical or horizontal? Is the

degree of coverage dependant on the shape/size/orientation of the

tube and does it matter at such small distances? On the SB18, the

flash tube is horizontal and rectangular. In the picture of the

butterfly flash bracket, Mr. Shaw is using a flash (I guess a Vivitar

102)that has a vertical flash tube, but placed horizontal on the

bracket.

 

If this position of the flash tube is important (at least if I am

shooting horizontal), then should I modify the design to account for

this? The manufacture of the bracket either horizontal or vertical

is not that difficult, I just hate to go through one design, take and

develop a roll just to find out that it should have been the other

way.

 

 

Thanks in advance for your help.

[andrew_vera]

Sorry about the post. I just re-read John Shaw's book and found my answer. I should have been more careful, I don't like to waste anyone's time. Anyway, he states that because of the small flash, it doens't matter the orientation of the flash tube. However, if anyone has a different opinion or experience, I would still appreciate your thoughts.

 

Thanks

[piotr_mikolajczyk]

Hi, Andrew,

 

I am using a similar setup (i.e. a telephoto zoom with a Nikon achromatic close-up diopter) with flash on the Lepp II Dual Macro Flash Bracket. I would agree that the flash head orientation is not crucial in such situations. However, I use a large flash (or sometimes two), and either set its zoom head for wideangle coverage, or mount a diffuser (Sto-Fen OmniBounce). Consequently, the flash coverage is so wide that the head orientation is not important. Finally, I would trust the oppinions or experst like John Shaw. More finally, I'd just buy the cheapest roll of slide film and do tests with a hand-held flash before proceeding.

 

Piotr