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02/11/2006 11:13:47 AM · #1 |
I've been asked to take pictures at first birthday for a friend in about 2 hours. I got a 580 ex flash for Christmas. I read the PhotoNotes.com Canon Flash article after I got it. Still, I tend to get inconsitant results.
I was going to take the 580ex, My Canon 100mm 2.8 Macro (which I think is a great for portraiture), and my Tamron SP AF 28-75mm f/2.8 XR Di.
But does anyone have any advice about camera flash settings in this indoor setting? |
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02/11/2006 11:29:48 AM · #2 |
The best thing is to manage the bouncing technique. The flash bounced in the ceilling can give you a very pleasent, difuse tipe of lightning.
But this is only achieved if the ceilling is white or a light coulor, and if it is close enough (for example in a church with a tall ceilling is almoust impossible to bounce it there). This can only be done correctly if you are in landscape position. In portrait orientation it's difficult to do it withought a flash bracket. You should vary the inclination of the flash acordingly to the ceilling height and the distance of your subject.
In some sittuations where I can't bounce the flash I use a high iso (800 or so) combined with direct flash, to expose correctly your subject and still capture some ambient light in to the background. This will also save your flash batteries. I always use iso 400 with inside home photos with flash, because fot the same apperure and shutter speed I will only need half the flash power, and save a lot on batteries.
But you will also have to notice that a bounced flash will loose effectiveness. It will loose between 1/2 and 1 stop of light depending the distance to ceiling and subject. So look to your histogram and compensate it on the EV compensation.
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02/11/2006 11:40:55 AM · #3 |
| Also what mode will you be shooting? Don't know if 10D is Similar to the 20D but I always end up in trouble shooting Av mode with the flash. The 20D in Av mode TTL adjusts the flash to become a Fill flash (don't know the technical stuff behind it). I bounce between Direct and bounced lighting through a Sto-Fen, bouncing in Av mode tends to be a little weak. |
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02/11/2006 11:49:42 AM · #4 |
Unless its a very large room, you might have problems with the 100mm. Typically, in a normal sized house, say 15X20 feet for a room, I use my 17-35 for group shots or my 28-75 for portraits. I also shoot them in manual mode at 200-400 ISO, 4.5 ap, 1/100 of a sec. I still sometimes have problems capturing kids - they move too fast!
Good luck! The more you do it, the better you get... |
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02/11/2006 12:06:14 PM · #5 |
I wouldn't shoot Av mode unless there is plenty (or almost nearly enough) light to shoot. For example, outdoors. Indoors, there is rarely enough light to shoot Av.
The problem with shooting Av is that camera picks the shutter speed. And unless you have plenty of light, that means the camera is likely to pick a shutter speed that is so slow that you can't hand hold the camera.
So switch to manual. Pick a shutter speed / aperture combo that freezes the action as much as you want/need while letting in as much ambient light as you can. Then let the camera+580 do their magic.
So, for example, I might set the ISO to 400 or 800 and with the two lenses you mentioned, I'd probably go for f/4.0 (or wider open if shooting individuals).
Next, I'd take a reading with the camera set to Av. See what the camera picks. If it picks something like 1/15th of a second, then you know you're in trouble with Av mode. So switch to manual and set the shutter speed to 1/60 or 1/80. You'll be letting in less ambient light and the flash will be doing more work. But at least the pictures won't be blurry!
If you have more ambient light than I'm guessing then great, shoot faster or go for more DOF. :-)
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02/23/2006 01:02:15 AM · #6 |
I wanted to thank everyone for their help. It turned out that the birthday was outside! So I ended up needing my flash as a filler against harsh sunlight more then for indoor shots like I thought.
Here are a few examples:
   
Not great, I know... but the family seemed to like them. The rest are very similar... Just more kids. Got some close ups of the cake and party favors, too.
Thanks again!
Stephen
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