 BetterPhoto Member |
Flash photography This evening I took some photos of boats on a lake using flash. I used a bronica sqa 80mm lens (standard) with a hand held metz flash. All the Polaroids came out with white dots, kind of like flare dots over the image, but apart from that there was no fogging and the boats were perfectly exposed. There were about 20 dots, some seem pentagonal and others seem round. They are different brightnesses. I held the flash about 12" away from the lens, and tried to keep it pointing in the same direction as the lens. I held the flash gun behind, above and slightly to one side of the lens. I took three Polaroids using different shutter speeds and each one came out with the dots - the more exposure the brighter the dots. When the flash gun flashed, I could see white dot-things in the air - midges and things - could the dots be in the atmosphere or are they to do with the lens. Any tips on how not to get the dots???
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Victoria |
Sophie, more than likely, those are bugs/nats, and the flash is reflecting off them.
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Maynard McKillen |
Dear Sophie: Victoria's response seems the most likely explanation. You didn't mention whether there were distant streetlights, yardlights or other pinpoint light sources in the background, which might record as hexagonals on film, in imitation of the aperture, which is formed by overlapping metal leaves in the lens. Sometimes a pack of Polaroid film can be defective, and you find white dots in a pattern or randomly distributed when you peel the print out, but based on your description, this seems an unlikely explanation.
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