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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Clovishound" data-source="post: 840499" data-attributes="member: 50197">I do a lot of macro work. I use flash for the majority of it. I use a different setup, a normal shoe mounted flash with a macro diffuser, but the concepts are the same. My guess from your description, is that you are using a large aperture. You will probably need to stop down to F/11 or F/16, since you are so close to your subject, and the teeth will reflect a lot of light. I do almost all my flash macro work with both the camera and flash in manual mode. I set the shutter speed to 1/200 sec or slower to sync with the flash. I then set my aperture to F/16. I start out at 1/4 power with my flash setup, which will deliver a different amount of light than yours, and I am normally in the ballpark. I check my first exposure, and if it's too dark, I increase power. If it's too light, I decrease the power. I do this until I get an acceptable exposure. Once you get a good exposure setup you probably won't have to adjust much as the distance from the flash and reflectance of the subject likely won't change much. A side benefit of a small aperture is that you will have greater depth of field, ie more of the subject will be in focus. Shooting closeup results in a rather narrow band in focus, so stopping down helps with that. There are other ways to increase depth of field, but those are best left for another day.</blockquote>