Advice needed for indoor photos...Canon 40D, 580EXII, 17-55 2.8

[slicendice]

Hi
I am attending a birthday party this weekend and have been asked to take some pictures. This isn't anything serious or critical and if the pics aren't any good then it's no big disaster - but I would like to be able to take some half decent pics if possible.

The party is in a house and the majority of the pics will be in the lounge and dining room. The rooms have pale/light painted walls and ceiling and the ceiling is roughly 8-9ft high. In terms of equipment, I have a Canon 40D, a 17-55 2.8IS lens, a 580EXII and a Stofen diffuser.

I have messed around with flash before but nothing like this - it's mainly been pics of inanimate objects and I've simply set the cam to "M", put it on a tripod and used trial and error to get pics that look OK. What I'm not sure about is what would be the best settings to use for this envrionment/scenario? Is it best to use "P" for this kind of thing? Any advice on ISO and aperture? And I'm assuming that bouncing the flash off ceiling (or walls?) would be the best option?

As you can tell, I'm a total noob when it comes to this kind of thing, so any help/advice will be very gratefully received.

Thanks

 

[Nuffles]

I would probably use M mode and bounce the light off the ceiling. Set your shutter speed and aperture to slightly underexpose (by a stop or two, depending on the situation) and set your flash to ETTL and use FEC (flash exposure compensation) on the camera to adjust your final exposure to the desired brightness. Bouncing off the ceiling you'll probably have to dial in a stop or two overexposure on the FEC to get it to expose the scene properly, but it's quick and easy to do on the camera. Once you have your exposure it should stay pretty static throughout the time you're there - flash tends to even out slight differences in ambient lighting that you'd notice normally without it.

 

[slicendice]

Thanks Jack, appreciate the input...

So basically crank exposure down a stop or two, and crank the FEC up a stop or two? I'll give that a try and see how it goes

 

[HoppyUK]

Piece of cake. Stofen on the 580 is perfect for that kind of situation. Couldn't be easier really.

Point it straight up and most of the light will go to the ceiling (also to the walls) and light both the subject and fill a small room like that pretty well. Then the direct component of the flash will go straight to the subject and lift the bounced shadows from under eyes and chins, and put a sparkle in the eyes

I wouldn't bother with trying to balance the ambient light as the flash will spread everywhere quite evenly in a domestic room. Flash on E-TTL, manual 1/250sec with whatever f/number you want for depth of field*. Use flash exposure compensation on the back of the gun if needs be.

If the ceiling is not white and you get a colour cast, do a custom white balance off a piece of white paper (see handbook). Different rooms may be different. Or you can correct colour in post.

*Edit: try f/2.8 to separate the main subject from the background, but you need to focus carefully and make sure if you have a small group of people that everyone is the same distance from the camera as DoF will be shallow and it will ensure they are all evenly exposed.

 

[kennysarmy]

are you going to post some photos so we can see how you got on?