Flash on camera advice

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cargo

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Gary
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Hi all.
Was not sure where to post these but chose here as my question is about hot shoe flash.
I am not confident at all with the camera and people more so with a big 580 ex atop the camera. I generally take photos around town and anything that catches my eye.
Anyways I do enjoy seeing the fab photos of people on here and really like to see ones taken at social events. That said I did take my camera out the other evening to a small party. Still not confident and dithered and dithered as to whether I would use it. Anyways I did use it for these few photos. I am aware that the idea is to be in manual and find an ambient exposure that I like then put the flash on in ettl and adjust as needed. This is what I did and would like to know if I am on the right track. In post it was apparent I should have given the ambient more exposure as I lifted it a bit in Raw.
The flash was used pointed up to the ceiling (which was very low) with the white card out.
I guess I am looking to know if I did ok and information on things I could do different to make the images better in the future.
I know the compositions aren't great as it was more a case of can I grab a photo and just took it as they stood.
Sorry for the long thread.

Gaz

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Dad_Freind.jpg

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Family.jpg
 
Yes, you're on the right lines. There are various ways of using flash in this situation (bouncing from behind, off walls with Black Foamy Thing [google that] etc) but ceiling bounce with a dash of fill is easy and gives good results.

Suggestions here, the little pull-out hilite card is very small and with the flash quite close to the ceiling, the direct fill-in component has got a bit overwhelmed. Try a bigger card (eg index card attached with rubber band, about the size of a packet of cigarettes) or shooting from a sitting position will increase the ratio from the hilite panel.

I use a Lumiquest QuikBounce for this kind of thing - very versatile and easy, and usefully bigger to soften the fill-in a bit http://store.lumiquest.com/lumiquest-quik-bounce/ Also, the much maligned Stofen diffuser cap would work well here, and is more discrete/robust.

I tend to shoot on Av, flash on auto-TTL, though manual if you prefer. The Canon default in Av is the camera will drop the shutter speed to match the ambient light, then you moderate the exposure and balance with exposure compensation on the camera (adjusts ambient with shutter speed) and flash on the gun (adjusts power). Just watch the shutter speed doesn't get too long or you'll get some ambient blur/ghosting, so push ISO a bit or use a lower f/number to pull shutter speed up to a safe level (say 1/30sec or faster in social situations).

Final tweak is to put a CTO gel (light orange) on the flash so the colour matches the flash.
 
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Thank you sooo much for the reply Richard.
I am relieved I did ok.There was nothing riding on it but I do put so much pressure on myself to get photo/light like I see on the internet.Yes I have a black foamie think but only used it playing around at home. I did try a photo bouncing behind myself (without the BFT and not aiming at anyone really) and the flash was very low I guess I needed to up the flash EC but I switched to using cieling bounce. I am assuming you can be to near to a subject doing this ? Re : the AV. Yes only chose manual as the other time I tried this in av the shutter was VERY slow.
If I ever get more confident do you have to adjust your wb if using the cto. I used auto on these but upped it in Raw (Canon dpp).

Gaz
 
cargo said:
Thank you sooo much for the reply Richard.
I am relieved I did ok.There was nothing riding on it but I do put so much pressure on myself to get photo/light like I see on the internet.Yes I have a black foamie think but only used it playing around at home. I did try a photo bouncing behind myself (without the BFT and not aiming at anyone really) and the flash was very low I guess I needed to up the flash EC but I switched to using cieling bounce. I am assuming you can be to near to a subject doing this ? Re : the AV. Yes only chose manual as the other time I tried this in av the shutter was VERY slow.
If I ever get more confident do you have to adjust your wb if using the cto. I used auto on these but upped it in Raw (Canon dpp).

Gaz
Click to expand...

You're welcome Gary.

Bouncing flash uses a lot of power, so firing it behind off a rear wall or something you will quite likely have run out of puff if you didn't crank the ISO or drop the f/number.

Yes, you can be too close for bouncing off a ceiling*. You need to get the light going a bit forward rather than directly from above the subject, so move back if you can. I almost always point the gun straight up.

When the shutter speed drops too low, it's because the ambient light level is low. Shooting in Av or manual makes no difference to that - it's just a different way of working. I rarely use manual in social situations. Flash is very sensitive to distance and you often don't have time to fiddle. Eg, one minute you have a group of four from maybe ten feet, then you go to shoot a cozy couple in a darker corner from half that distance. Both flash and ambient exposures will change dramatically. I find Av plus compensation very fast and reliable but whatever gets the job done - different ways of achieving the same result.

If you use a CTO gel, set white balance to tungsten - or shoot Raw and sort that in post processing. The important thing is to get both kinds of light the same colour as that's very difficult to adjust separately in post, verging on the impossible.

*If you mean the flash too close to the ceiling, then yes to that too, but easily sorted buy zooming the flash head wider. What you can't do much about is the ratio of ceiling bounce to direct flash from the hilite panel, so need to make that bigger. Another good device for this kind of thing is Rogue FlashBender though with all this stuff some knowledge of how flash/light works is important.
 
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realspeed said:
There is an alternative and that is using one of these


http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?ie=UTF8&...vptwo=&hvqmt=b&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_52dt42hfbr_b

How bright are they?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErFwQC7D9bg&list=UUwYuArJi5ks5ErtToJBq6xQ

This is a video I took with mine which gives some idea of the distance the light is thrown. With a steady light against a flash is as good as being in a studio setup

I did buy a couple of Sony batteries for it.
Click to expand...

You had the video light on-camera? Doesn't appear to be doing anything :thinking:
 
Thanks for the reply (Realspeed) I think I need to master normal speedlight work before adding something new to the mix.

Gaz
 
Hi Richard. Thanks again for some great advice. The images here were shot @ iso 800 f4 @ 1/60th. Ambient wise I think I could have upped the iso a tad or maybe lowered the shutter a stop but I would be feared of shaky image. but from what your saying the overall images are not too bad but needed some more light coming in from the front to fill shadows ?
I had the head zoomed to 105mm so I could have widened that,would that have given more light forwrds too ?
To be honest when I saw the cieling was that low I thought my speedlight would flood the place with light.


Gaz
 
cargo said:
Hi Richard. Thanks again for some great advice. The images here were shot @ iso 800 f4 @ 1/60th. Ambient wise I think I could have upped the iso a tad or maybe lowered the shutter a stop but I would be feared of shaky image. but from what your saying the overall images are not too bad but needed some more light coming in from the front to fill shadows ?
I had the head zoomed to 105mm so I could have widened that,would that have given more light forwrds too ?
To be honest when I saw the cieling was that low I thought my speedlight would flood the place with light.


Gaz
Click to expand...

The technique you're using is a good one - main light bounced off the ceiling, nice and soft and evenly spread, then lifting shadows under eyes and chins with a dash of direct fill-in, plus adding a sparkle to the eyes. In exposure terms, it's just about getting the balance right between effectively three light sources - bounce flash, fill flash, and ambient.

Then on the aesthetic side, using a larger flash modifier like the Lumiquest QuikBounce will soften the direct light nicely - at least it will if you're reasonably close. And balance the colour with CTO gel.

As far as ambient blur and shutter speed is concerned, you have camera-shake to consider and normal rules apply there, and of course image stabilisation can help a lot. The other thing is subject movement, so even if you could hand-hold successfully at maybe 1/8sec with stabilisation, your subjects would have to be motionless. Where you draw the line on that is subjective. I suggested 1/30sec, others would say 1/60sec, and some would go lower and say a bit of ambient blurring doesn't matter that much. All valid views I guess, and also largely dependent on the subject, eg kids party vs older adults etc. If you shoot on P with a Canon, shutter speed won't drop below 1/60sec with flash, so that's another guideline.
 
Cheers Richard. Great info. It seems I have the concept just need the confidence to believe I can do this and practice.
This is only for my pleasure and I do not wish to do this for a job I just wanna be able to take descent phots.

Gaz.

ps:

My wife did the race for life on Sunday she as done it for the last 12 years. I took the camera there which I have done before but on this occassion I had the speedlight attached. I took some photos of some of the people taking part.
Again I am not 100% sure when to use the flash apart from it is recomended in bright light with sun to the backish of subject. That said I see the paid photographers use the flash all the time.
I liked the images but I did remove the flash highlights from the sunglasses and a bit of shine off the skin. I used hhs and -1/1/3.
I havent uploaded here as you might be P_ _ _ _ d off with me by now.
Link to them below if you don't mind having a look and telling me if this was the right time to use it. (No matter if you don't I Know people don't like links and you have taken loads of time with me).

Gaz

http://www.flickr.com/photos/46559688@N08/sets/72157634670691542/
 
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Race for Life pics are perfectly exposed, spot on. And some great captures for the girls to keep. Only a photographer would know you'd used flash and having removed some of the tell-tale reflections, it looks totally natural. Nice work :)

I would always use flash in a situation like that, deliberately turning the subjects back to the light. It just looks so good. The beauty of fill-in is it's self-moderating. Set below the ambient level (-2/3rds is a good starting point) if there are shadows to fill, it will lift them, but if there aren't then the flash will hardly effect lighter tones, if at all. HSS was made for this :thumbs:

The key to it all is the flash/ambient ratio. No right or wrong answers and what looks right is right, though most agree that less flash is better than too much. Get used to adjusting ratios; suggest use Av with comp on the camera and also on the back of the gun (as described in earlier post). Try that at home and you'll see how quick and easy it is to get both correct exposure and optimum balance with a few clicks.

I'm a big fan of evaluative metering, but for flash I use centre-weighted, as many others do. There's a lot going on with fill-flash that can throw up anomolies and sometimes the evaluative's 'smart' thinking gets it quite badly wrong. Centre-weighted is more consistent.
 
You looked :-) Thank you really appreciate it.
I did and do normally shoot in AV. Those were taken @ 0 ev and the flash as I posted above. Re metering: I have camera always set to centre weighted seems to work well that way.I believe you can change how the flash meters but I never touch that at all ( as not sure what I would be doing ) so it is set at evaluative according to the exif data. Reading this though I guess it meters the same as the camera does eg: with emphasis on the centre circle.

Will practice more.
Thanks again.

Gaz
 
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