Fixing Blurry pictures

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Achitophel

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Hi

Tried a search on this but couldn't see anything.

Took some pics recently at my Dad's 70th using my new 7D with flash. Was in a restaurant so quite dim light. I was using aperature priority, at f2.8 on a Canon 18-55 2.8 IS lens, so thought that the IS would be enough to compensate, especially with the aperature wide open. Anyway bounced the flash off the (white) ceiling and the majority of the pics are fine. However, some of them are blurred, with a shutter speed of between 1/5 and 1/15.

Presuambly there is no easy or semi-easy way of photoshopping them to fix this?
 
NOPE - nothing you an do now. If the light was dim I'd have suggested f/5.6 - f/8 @ 125th - on manual and then bounce flash.

I'd also suggest using a Nikon next time! :cuckoo:
 
Aye, as even though it may be possible to get a steady shot with IS at 1/5th (wouldn't fancy my chances of a good hit rate) it's not quick enough to stop motion.
 
You'd have been better using a faster shutter speed. Doing that would have meant that the scene was lit predominantly by the flash rather than ambient lighting. The results would have been harsher, but at least they'd have been sharp.
 
Thanks all for that - I had suspected as much. Will live and learn and use a faster shutter speed in the future as well as direct flash, even if it does wash out.
 
Bounce the flash, use a diffuser you don't have to wash them out by using direct flash

Also increase the ISO as a possibility
 
Please post up an example, you'd be amazed what some folk can do to improve a dead shot.
 
Remember that shutter-speed only governs the amount of ambient light when using flash - in effect, the flash output becomes the 'shutter' and exposure is then governed by flash output and aperture (and ISO).
You can bounce the flash all over the room if you like as long as the camera's shutter speed is set at or below the flash-sync speed you'll be correctly exposed.
It may not be as pleasing an image, having excluded a lot of the ambient light from the surrounding areas, but it'll be sharp.
 
awp said:
NOPE - nothing you an do now. If the light was dim I'd have suggested f/5.6 - f/8 @ 125th - on manual and then bounce flash.

I'd also suggest using a Nikon next time! :cuckoo:
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If he was getting 1/5 and 1/15 @ f/2.8, why would you recommend f/5.6 - f/8?
(presuming the flash wasn't on manual at low power.)
 
alexisonfire said:
If he was getting 1/5 and 1/15 @ f/2.8, why would you recommend f/5.6 - f/8?
(presuming the flash wasn't on manual at low power.)
Click to expand...

You don't 'get' 1/5 and 1/15 -

One more time for the hard of hearing - shutter speed has no influence on exposure when using flash other than to balance flash output and ambient light.
 
Okay, can I try and summarise for the OP the good points brought up so far:

1. Your blurring is from the low available light being exposed with a slow shutter speed.

In future you have two options to fix it:

a) increase your ISO so you can get your shutter speed up
b) balance your exposure to use less available light (by lowering your EC) to increase your shutter speed

2. If you had shot in "P" mode (assuming you're using canon), the camera would have taken care of all this for you. You still have exposure balance control with your EC and FEC controls. P will stop the shutter speed from going below 1/60.

Regarding the correction of your current images, I doubt if there is much you can do.

Sorry

Steve
 
Increasing the ISO next time should give you a faster shutter speed. What ISO did you use?
 
You can make it really complex or really simple. I'm all for the really simple... complex can come later.

As far as I know your 7D syncs at a maximum of 1/250th of a second.
so... put the camera on manual, ISO 100, set the shutter speed to 1/200th (yes I know it syncs at 1/250) and set the aperture a f/5.6 and leave the flash at full power, bounce it if you want to.

You won't be a million miles off. Chimp! i.e look at the rear display to see what you've got. The rear display isn't actually designed to check exposure but it'll do for now. My guess is that in a typical restaurant setting you'll be close enough to have useable pics. If you want to adjust the exposure change the aperture. Leave the shutter speed alone.

Once you start to grasp the complexities of balancing the flash and ambient light, mucking about with first and second curtain sync etc then fine. You can change any setting you want, but for starters, make it as simple as possible.
 
Bill Roberts said:
You can make it really complex or really simple. I'm all for the really simple... complex can come later.

As far as I know your 7D syncs at a maximum of 1/250th of a second.
so... put the camera on manual, ISO 100, set the shutter speed to 1/200th (yes I know it syncs at 1/250) and set the aperture a f/5.6 and leave the flash at full power, bounce it if you want to.

You won't be a million miles off. Chimp! i.e look at the rear display to see what you've got. The rear display isn't actually designed to check exposure but it'll do for now. My guess is that in a typical restaurant setting you'll be close enough to have useable pics. If you want to adjust the exposure change the aperture. Leave the shutter speed alone.

Once you start to grasp the complexities of balancing the flash and ambient light, mucking about with first and second curtain sync etc then fine. You can change any setting you want, but for starters, make it as simple as possible.
Click to expand...

Good advice Bill :thumbs:
 
never use direct flash when there's a good ceiling to bounce off.

stick your camera in manual and follow the advice above. You'd be surprised what 1/200 sec, f/whatever you want your DOF to be and playing with the flash output power will give you.

as said above, shutter speed dosen't really affect the flashed part of the exposure - the flash will freeze a moving subject in total darkness regardless of whether the shutter is at 1/10 or 1/1000th second. Instead the aperture, iso, and (to a lesser extent) the shutter speed all dictate how much AMBIENT light is sucked into the sensor.

Think of a vacuum cleaner. the aperture is the size of the pipe - opening it it will let you suck more air in in a short space of time. Turning up the iso from 200 to 400 is like doubling the power of the motor.

why don't you read the strobist website "lighting 101" section on balancing flash and ambient? he talks about off camera flash a lot but its basically the same principle. Here's a link.

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/03/lighting-101-balancing-flash-and.html
 
JasonRS said:
Personally, I'd never bounce it off the ceiling if there's a perfectly good wall to bounce it off...
Click to expand...

Good advice, light from high and to one side of the camera gives some nice modelling shadows across the face and bouncing off a wall makes sure those shadows are nice and soft.

BUT BE AWARE...that if the wall has a colour, that colour will reflect back onto your subject. A blue or green cast across a brides face may not go down well.

In general when it comes to colours of faces, they look much better (and healthier) with warm colours (oranges) than with cool colours (blues).
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by JasonRS View Post
Personally, I'd never bounce it off the ceiling if there's a perfectly good wall to bounce it off...
Good advice, light from high and to one side of the camera gives some nice modelling shadows across the face and bouncing off a wall makes sure those shadows are nice and soft.

BUT BE AWARE...that if the wall has a colour, that colour will reflect back onto your subject. A blue or green cast across a brides face may not go down well.
Click to expand...

i agree with this but here is what the OP said:

Was in a restaurant
Click to expand...

Anyway bounced the flash off the (white) ceiling
Click to expand...

Number 1: white ceiling, no colour casts = no problem.
Number 2: unless he was sat next to a wall (in which case the wall is probably too close anyway) i think the people on the table next to him would be quite annoyed.

Just food for thought.
 
goldenstar said:
Increasing the ISO next time should give you a faster shutter speed. What ISO did you use?
Click to expand...

NO...increasing ISO will allow him to use a narrower aperture...

Shutter-speed has no...never mind...:bang:

READ THE THREAD PROPERLY!
 
Arkady said:
NO...increasing ISO will allow him to use a narrower aperture...

Shutter-speed has no...never mind...:bang:

READ THE THREAD PROPERLY!
Click to expand...

I can see you get a little frustrated there Rob but I think Goldenstar is right...

When balancing a strobe light and available light (for the same head power):

1. Aperture controls how much light you get from the head in your exposure
2. Shutter controls how much available light you get in your exposure

OP must increase his shutter speed to stop the blur. If he leaves the ISO as it is, then the available light component of the exposure will darken (no bad thing necessarily). If he increases his ISO he can maintain the same available/flash balance but with the faster shutter speed and no blur.

If you think I'm wrong Rob, then do try and explain gently. I'm not trying to increase your frustration levels.

Steve *taking hard cover* ;)
 
You're absolutely right Steve;
I mentioned that in an earlier post - as long as the shutter speed is at or below the flash-sync maximum.
All changes in shutter-speed do is balance more or less ambient light. It has no effect on the flash exposure - flash output and aperture (and ISO) do that...

And you are right that I got annoyed - there have been a couple of threads recently with newcomers posting hearsay as 'fact' and it only serves to confuse the issue. Some questioners may be new to photography and thus take everything they read here as gospel.
 
Don't worry about it Steve... we're used to him!

:p :exit:
 
Thanks for coming back to me Rob...and all feelings of frustration well understood.
 
I'm rather an incompetent dabbler, but my understanding is . . .

IF (big "if") the 7D works the same as my humble 400D then when in aperture priority using TTL flash it will probably try to set the shutter speed to expose correctly for the ambient light conditions and then adds fill flash controlled to expose just the active focus point correctly

therefore everything including the subject is metered without regards to flash and a minimum of flash power is added to mildly brighten up the subject. It is trying to balance flash with available light and as Arkady points out, in that situation the shutter speed does become important

Its a feature more useful for adding fill to faces in shade when backlit on bright sunny days than indoor photos.

Results in proper low light conditions are really long shutter times (so everything is blurred) and everything in the background is exposed correctly(ish) as if it was without flash. The shutter speed does become important as its basically a non-flash metering.

I get better results in low light by going into manual mode, generally set shutter about 1/100 and set aperture as required for depth of field. The TTL system then controls flash power necessary to expose the active focus point correctly, and the background has to take its chances. The background can be exposed better by upping the ISO but 400 is the limit on the 400D unless I want to deal with loads of noise.

(1/100 is just my untutored preference, it can go lots slower as shutter speed becomes largely irrelevant when flash is the major light source and the really short flash duration creates the effective shutter speed, however it then depends at what point the ambient light starts to become significant)

there should be a tutorial on canon TTL flash operation somewhere on the internet, but I dont have the link to hand
 
Lawrence, I have a criticism... with such well thought through and (as far as I can tell) correct and detailed responses as the one above...I take issue with your self-afacing description of an "incompetent dabbler".

In fact you have got me thinking about a point of detail about something I didn't know and am unable to verify looking at my manuals.

We shoot on 5Ds, btw...but here is my interest:

You mention:
"and then adds fill flash controlled to expose just the active focus point correctly"

Well it will expose as defined by the Flash Exposure Compensation (FEC) value, but you say it will expose at "the active point correctly". I assumed that it would expose using the "evaluative" system when I have selective evaluative metering.

I found your assertion so interesting because a while back I thought I might use spot metering so the TTL exposure would be more accurate for head shots...but I could get it to make no noticeable difference...perhaps lending weight to your argument.

So tonight I got my manuals out to try and find out more. Whilst I could find nothing about flash exposure using TTL, I did find the behaviour of AE under evaluative metering to be similar to what you say, it exposes for the selected AF point. Perhaps this is also true then for when I press the shutter release half down.

I always use single AF point selection, so I'm quite interested. Nowadays I use incident light metering more and more, but I'd love to more about how the camera's reflected light metering works.

Steve
 
I'm just muddling along and falling down the same holes . . . and I read too much on the internet.

Try this link, it's been referred to as "the EOS flash bible" :
http://photonotes.org/articles/eos-flash/

. . . report back in a couple of hours :D

OP's problem is No. 7 of the Top 10 FAQ section ;)
 
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