russell_talbot

Thanks once again. Ok, I can see that a few things contributed to the difficulties I was having. Going forward what do people suggest I can do to get better shots with on camera flash in larger rooms with high ceilings? I imagine I'm going to angle the flash head more directly, but then I'll get the Harsh light we all hate.... Is this where a soft boxes etc come in?

Ok, that makes a lot of sense. Thanks. I realised I neglected to mention what is probably a v important point, I don't know? At all times I was bouncing the flash either straight up or barley forward using the white square to push the light forward. I guess with ettl mode and the flash pointing up to a high ceiling it was struggling to measure output and reflection? Thanks once again.

Thanks for the replies. I changed the batteries at least 4 times during the day. To my recollection the issues were occurring even with new batteries. Was the size of the room making the flash output at high power and chewing the battery that quickly?

Hello all, thanks for taking the time to read my post. Please forgive me if I get a few of the tech stuff wrong, this is all fairly new to me. Yesterday I was at a friends wedding and I had the chance to borrow another friends kit so made the most of it. Now this kit is way beyond my skill / knowledge level but I had to have a go! I was using a 5dmk3 with 24-70mm f2.8 L mk2 with a 580ex2 flash unit. I was using the flash in the morning inside in a house to capture my partner and our friends getting ready, no real issues and when in manual mode and settings at f4.0 or f5.6 or higher I was able to get the flash to fire every time I took a shot. I was in in single shot on the drive and AF was ai servo. Oh and the flash was on ettl mode. I also had the flash power one stop up to expose the shot to my liking. Now later in the day at a different venue when light was bad things changed completely. One room was huge and when trying to capture couples dancing - I was changing focal length a lot to do this. The flash would stop firing after one sometimes two single shots. The green light would stay on for maybe 3-5 secs,yet the flash wasn't exposing nearly light enough and seemed under powered. Even with couples close to me. I tried opening up the lens to 2.8 but no change, thinking that more ambient light would reduce the power needs of the flash. Even when I went to a smaller - but darker room - the same happened. Was me changing the focal length the issue? We're my batteries losing power too quickly? - they were Duracell....- or what was I doing wrong? When doing evening / night event work is using zooms with flash a no no? Should I use a prime? ( 35mm 50mm 85mm ) Edit: I realised I hadn't made note of the ISO in thinking what it was I think I've realised what the problem might of been. I had the ISO on auto all day so the ISO with the flash on would be limited to 400. Would that cause the issues? Thanks once agin for reading and hopefully some kind folks could answer the questions I've put down.