help!! what am i doing wrong?

jamiedolittle

jamiedolittle

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james
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was shooting a wedding reception lastnight....dont worry it was for a friend and more for my practise than for their keepsafe.

anyway, i was using my 50mm 1.8 450d and a 580ex11...connected the flash and chose e-ttl..and hi-speed shutter sync. but i could not get a very sharp image at all! well of semi moving subjects anyway.
tried flash right at them aswell as bouncing it.

any idea?
 
Why use high speed sync? It lowers the power of your flash!
What mode were you shooting in? If AV then the shutter speed was probably too low, allowing movement and ambient light to interfere with the images!
 
i will try to load some pics later as internet is really slow tonight and i have to re-size and upload them to my gallery first...

yes ed it was av, i just left it at that as i could not really see any difference between hi-sync and first curtain.....i didn't know it lowered the power, why is that?
 
sorry if i dont reply for a bit, im off out in a min....

all were shot at f1.8 too.
 
Hi speed sync uses a number of smaller pulses of flash to cover the moving curtains watch this in AV mode the camera will monitor the available light and slow the shutter speed down to compensate hence the blurry images.

Best way would have been to stick it in manual, select an aperture (say f8) 1/200 sec, ISO 400 and first curtain flash and bounce the light where possible.
 
ahh that makes sence ed thanks....(should have read the manuel first!) manual scares me at the min....ive got to get used to shutter speed. had the iso on auto and it was chooseing 400 most of the time.
 
jamiedolittle said:
sorry if i dont reply for a bit, im off out in a min....

all were shot at f1.8 too.
Click to expand...

I;ve been there 3 years ago and made that mistake. Av will meter if there was no flash, setting long exposure times. High sync doesn't take effect unless you are faster than 1/250s. So you have to force it to manual: something like 1/250s, f/2.8 ISO100-200. Also note that lens is hopelessly soft at f/1.8, but quite good when stopped down.
Read the manual until you understand everything and take it as a lesson.
 
At a guess were you shooting in P mode ? If you were then on my 40D at least it will detect the flash and set 1/60th. This will not really be fast enough to freeze movement but will allow a certain amount of brightish ambient light to be seen. Try setting 1/200th (should be below the flash max sync speed) and see if that is OK in terms of freezing movement ?
 
Don't worry about the High Speed Sync. I believe it only works in that mode if your shutter is faster than the sync speed of your camera. if using Av mode that is unlikely to have happened.

As suggested above, when using Av mode, the camera meters the ambient light (without flash) so in a dark place you'll get very slow shutter speeds. the flash will try to freeze what it sees but I guess all your shots will be pretty blurry.

in a dark reception, set camera to manual and flash to ETTL. Up the ISO a bit (400-800) and set the apertue to what you want in terms of dof - the smaller the aperture the harder your flash has to work. this affects recycle times and battery power.

i usually set about f5.6 and ISO 400 or 800. Shutter speed doesn't affect the flash power. It controls the ambient light. As your images were blurry, it means the shutter speed was too slow but now as you increase shutter speed your background will start to become slightly darker so set just fast enough to capture what you want. f a portrait, maybe 1/60th is fast enough if faster action, maybe 1/125th.

the numbers will be different but if you get the idea you can use it in your own situation.
 
Being the Canon the camera will set exposure to to allow the background to be burned in if set on AV etc; what they are trying to avoid is a bright lit subject and a black background.
It is holding the shutter open which results in blurred motion; I think the P program sets the shutter speed at 1/60 and illuminates the foreground subject only; manual settings will also give you the results you want.
 
Manual camera & auto flash - Manuial is not as hard as it sounds :)
 
yeah the pics are very blury.....with regaurds to manual...im fine with the setting the iso and appurture its just the shutter speed!


just tried to upload some pics but no luck!...think i need to re-size them, but cant remember how to.
 
jamiedolittle said:
yeah the pics are very blury.....with regaurds to manual...im fine with the setting the iso and appurture its just the shutter speed!


just tried to upload some pics but no luck!...think i need to re-size them, but cant remember how to.
Click to expand...

seriously the flash is in ttl so put in 1/60 f4 iso 200 or whatever and as long as its too dark with the flash OFF then it'll be fine ;)
 
I had a party last year that i wanted to take some photos of...

Had advice from tim "tdodd" to try Manual mode on camera, 1/60th, F8, Iso 800 and flash mounted on top set to Ettl.

The photos came out great, everyone was jealous of the photos as they had background ambient light not the usual blown out flash pics...

Also white balance set to flash....

:thumbs:
 
basically its a manual exposure with a reasonable shutter speed that under exposes the bg a little bit but not loads (like 1-2 stops max). iso will make it more/less grainy the aperture will give you DoF
 
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