430EX II best settings

lionfish

Suspended / Banned
Messages
258
Name
Phil
Edit My Images
No
Going to a family party soon with disco!
Want to take some good quality pics so been and bought 430EX II, this to combine with my 5D II can you good peeps tell me how best to set the whole lot up.
Gonna use Av.

Looking forward to all helpfull replies

Phil
 
Chaz just incase you didnt see
"Going to a family party soon with disco!
Want to take some good quality pics so been and bought 430EX II, this to combine with my 5D II can you good peeps tell me how best to set the whole lot up.
Gonna use Av."
Why I changed is imaterial, perhaps Ive got more money than sense!!
I`m just trying to gain some information from people with good experience.
 
Hi Phil,

I would suggest using bounce flash by pointing it up at the ceiling and dialling in + a couple of stops power in manual mode. That way you will avoid the nasty direct flash.

Good luck dude - and remember to have fun too! Oh and keep the 5D away from the beer <- they drink a lot you see! :lol:
 
I have to say I find a question like this to be how can I say odd.
You have moved up from a 40D to a 5D II
May I ask why you got a 5D II?

? why's it odd Chaz? Guy obviously doesn't do a lot of flash stuff, for all we know he's a landscape chap and spends his life shooting them, hence a little help from more portrait orientated people is handy when something like this comes up. Also poss more importantly he asked how to use a speedlight at a party, not why he made an upgrade


The approach to this massively depends on the disco tbh.

For clubs with funky light shows I like to use fairly long exposures (manual camera setting) down to like 1/10 of a second, used f2.8 on my 50d but you might need f4 or above on ff for the depth of field, then pick an iso value like say 800? That should give funky lights but not really expose anything, then use the flash on ttl to light the subject, stofen bounced off a ceiling if ya got it, not if you haven't

For more grown up parties with more light I like to expose either for a nice burn around the lights or just the room down a stop or two (another this is to expose for outside the windows if its daytime and they're likely to be in frame). Then make up the difference with ttl flash again bounced if you can

Those are both rough guides as I don't know the exact situation you're going into.

Remember to work the exposure compensation on the back of the flash to suit the subjects (it wants to meter the scene to be grey) ie -ve compensation for someone wearing black, +ve for someone wearing white

Dunno how much of that was teaching you how to suck eggs but hopefully a fair bit is useful :thumbs:
 
Excellent response David - I was waiting for a naturist strobist :lol: to reply with a lot more knowledge than me.
 
True I do mainly do landscape and outdoor stuff, so the world of flash is a bit of a mystery to me.
 
No David you wern`t teaching me to suck eggs I appreciate it when people give educated responses, thanks
 
better in lighting for more responses?
 
Av is not a good choice with flash indoors. The camera will try to take an available light picture and the flash will add some fill light. Slow shutter times will result in blurred pictures overlaid with some sharp detail from the flash.

Use M with aperture and shutter speed (say 1/200 to stay within flash sync) of your choice and let the flash decide how much light to produce. Or use P and let the camera and flash decide.
 
If you are unfamilar with flash, you will get a guaranteed decent quality result by just putting the camera on P, flash on E-TTL pointed straight at a white ceiling, and a DIY bounce-card attached (see here www.abetterbouncecard.com ) or a Stofen-style diffuser.

P will moderate flash with ambient light for a good balance, but won't let the shutter speed drop too low if it's really quite dark. Nice soft light from the ceiling, fairly evenly spread, plus the essential dash of fill from the bounce card to brighten faces and put a sparkle in the eyes. Stofen gives a very similar result :thumbs:

If there is no suitable ceiling, that's a whole different story :thumbsdown:
 
Back
Top