What am i doing wrong???

[jks_photo]

Hi guys,

what am I doing wrong with the following picture???



I did a long exposure with a flash at the back of tree remotely triggered and set to second curtain sync. I was kind of hoping to give the tree a somewhat "white glow"rim lighting effect but I didn't seem to be able to achieve that with this and the other pictures I didn't bother to post.

shot was at 8sec f5.6 ISO250 flash was about 4 feet at the back of tree [ limited space] power was at 1/2 flash power.

please help.

thanks for looking


james

[Dr Croubie]

Have you got an example of an image that Does have a 'white rim glow' effect that you're trying to emulate?
Is the flash pointing towards the tree, or the staircase?
My short guess answer would be you need to underexpose the tree more and overexpose the background more. The tree looks good, so the only way you can wash out the background more is with more flash power, or shorter exposure + higher iso/wider aperture (then the flash takes up proportionately more exposure time).
2nd Curtain sync doesn't make much difference except with moving objects, afaik, but i don't think it's your problem. Maybe a Multi-Flash will add in more light as well.
And for glowing, nothing beats a smoke machine (or well-timed hair-spray).

[Dr Croubie]

Do you mean something like this? (but still with front details visible, ie not a full silhouette)

Just one of the first results from googling 'rim light' (with safe-search on, or it could have gone horribly horribly wrong)

[jks_photo]

hi doc,
thanks for your input. Im sorry but I don't have an image of what I'm trying to emulate. Im just picturing it in in my mind though I'm sure I'm seen one before. A xmas tree that has a all it's little lights lit up in their colors but I wanted it to be "backlit" perhaps [now that i thought about it] would be a better term. the backlight would give it a somewhat glowing appearance... am I making any sense???

[jks_photo]

hi doc,<br>thanks for your input. Im sorry but I don't have an image of what I'm trying to emulate. Im just picturing it&nbsp;in in my mind though I'm sure I'm seen one before.&nbsp;A xmas tree that has a all it's little lights lit up in their colors but I wanted it to be "backlit" perhaps [now that i thought about it] would be a better term. the backlight would give it a somewhat glowing appearance... am I making any sense???

flash was pointed at the tree. Come to think of it, yeah I guess I would need some smoke to get my desired effect...

sorry for the double post

[DanoPhoto]

When I play with longer exposures, I take a few pix with adjustments to some of the variables. You mentioned using 1/2 flash power, try a couple of shots with more and see what effect that has. I am quite a novice, but love to tinker with the variables for different outcomes.

[jrw]

A couple of things you could try. With an 8 second exposure for ambient lighting any flash applied behind will be of such brief duration that it won't show up much at all. It would be similar to my first dissapointment with lightning when I used too long of an exposure. If you have another flash available to provide light from the front it should do much to help with reducing exposure times. The other item to experiment with is the vertical angle of your backlight. When I have captured the glow around trees and plants outside, without the help of ice or rain, the sun has always been only slightly angled away from being direct backlight. Putting it in words this way I am starting to wonder if the 'glow' might be diffraction on the edges of objects.