Help with Event Flash

I've been shooting outdoor sport events or nature/landscapes for years and feel

I've done pretty well with these scenarios and have learned a lot, but I wanted

to start doing something a little outside my comfort zone to learn a new area of

photography.

 

I've started volunteering at my local church to shoot some event photography as

a way to get more involved with the church, to practice, and I love to shoot and

thought this would be a new area to delve into. The church is huge with a lot

of concert type events as well as banquets etc.

 

I've done 2 events thus far. One was a banquet under what I considered

difficult natural lighting conditions of small Christmas lights and candles. I

shot this with a 10D and 580EX with Stofen Omni bounce. The flash was directed

straight ahead as the room was all wood ceilings (think log cabin). Most shots

turned out "OK" but some, mainly the portraits with flash were a little hot and

cast a shadow here and there. I used an aperture of 2.8 on most of the shots at

ISO800. I set the custom function on the camera to lock in the shutter speed

for using flash an AV priority which kept the shutter to 1/200. In nature

photography I had all day to test and try new settings, but at events there's

only a limited amount of time and you obviously want the highest success ratio

so any advice here would be appreciated. I seem to have the most trouble with

flash shots.

 

The other event I shot was a Christmas program under what I'd call concert

lighting. I mainly used a Sigma 80-400 OS EX on the 10D at ISO800-1600 and no

flash at AV wide open (4.5-5.6 depending on focal length for this lens). These

turned out quite well, although I had about 10% of the 400mm shots have some

blur in them.

 

I'm scheduled to shoot another event this Sunday which I'm told will again be

low light and no windows. I plan on using the 10D and 580EX again, but was

considering trying some type of bounce device such as a piece of note card or

the like attached to the flash and aim it up. The ceilings will be 30-40ft high

and walls are carpeted so not much bounce flash opportunity here.

 

Any suggestions are appreciated for those in the know. I realize practice is

the best teacher, but again, I only have so much time at these events and would

like to have some type of starting point.

 

Should I stop the lens down to 4.0 or 5.6? One of the other photogs at the

church that I've been working with suggested that, but I've not seen any of her

work and I don't think her lenses are faster than 4.5 or so. In program mode

the camera sets everything to 1/60 and 4.0 regardless of available light so it

kind or surprised me that setting the custom function for locking in shutter

speed in AV mode with flash set the 10D to 1/200.

 

Thanks in advance, and sorry for the novel. I can provide some sample shots of

the past two events if needed.

Your should post some shots - I am guessing the backgrounds are going to be close to black with the subject looking rather Whiteish with flash and hot spots. IMO 1/200th shutter wothout even a 2.8 lens is just way to high inside. You should be aroung 1/60 to get some light in your lens. I can't help but think the pics are going to look very spashotish like a $200.00 point and shoot camera. I would look into a faster lens for shure have your shutter on the 1/60th range or less if you can hand hold it.

 

I know Cannon handeles noise well but at 1600 ISO is there a lot of grain?? You can get better bringing the shutter speed down and a lot better adding a faster lens bringing the ASA down for quality. I am a nikon shooter and ASA 800 with a 2.8 lens is still horrid with noise.

Keep the aperture as wide as you can and the shutter open for as long as you feel comfortable (1/30? 1/15?) and turn the ISO up ditto - so that you get as much out of the ambient light as possible. This will fill in shadows from the flash, and give some background to your pictures.

Read the following article--planetneil.com, under techniques, article on using on-camera flash.

Also, it is better to use manual camera mode, although f4 at 1/60th is a pretty good combo with ISO 400/800. f4 on a crop camera gives a pretty good DOF for most situations, to cover focusing errors. I would not use AV mode at all, since normally AV will set too slow a shutter speed, or you get the fastest sync speed, as you have set it, which results in dark backgrounds. Important to understand the dragging the shutter concept (in the article mentioned). With the 10D, which used the "old" ETTL (non-II), the flash exposure was very focus point dependent. I'd also read the photonotes.org article on EOS flash. What color are the carpeted walls and ceiling? Even 30/40 feet high, using ISO 800, you will be surprised with bouncing if the color is light or white.

These are very difficult lighting situations to deal with. You have several problems that you need to solve:-

 

1) Direct flash is harsh, and suffers from inverse square falloff and can cast unwanted shadows behind subjects. The normal prescription for that is to bounce the flash which works by providing a diffuse large area source, but where the bounce surface is too distant or unsuitable because of its colour, you have to work around it.

 

Shooting from further away with a longer focal length will reduce inverse square falloff, and careful choice of subject to background distance relative to subject distance will help avoid black backgrounds.

 

Getting the flash off the hotshoe (preferably at least onto a bracket that allows the flash to be above the lens in both portrait and landscape orientation) will help to cast any shadows behind the subject rather than to one side or as halos.

 

If possible, consider either the use of additional slave flash(es) to provide less unidirectional light, or try to use your own bounce surface/diffuser with a large surface area - umbrella, foam core sheet (probably requires an assistant), or consider a Lumiquest Pocketbounce.

 

You should not use the Stofen with anything other than bounce flash (the instructions warn that that can cause flash hotspots).

 

2) Without allowing any significant ambient light to register in the exposure, shots will be "flashy".

 

Switch to M mode (forget Av and the custom function). Set as low a shutter speed as you dare consistent with not overexposing - "dragging the shutter". This may well be somewhat slower than you would normally tolerate for a handheld daylight shot, because the flash will freeze the subject unless the ambient exposure is very long when you would also risk subject movement. Nevertheless, you may want to use an IS/OS lens or a monopod. Flash will be fill only, rather than dominating the lighting.

 

3) When dragging the shutter, mixed lighting can make a mess of colour balance.

 

This is solved by using a gel over the flash (e.g. from Rosco Cinegel swatchbook offers a lot of flexibility to match different ambient light), or a suitably coloured diffuser (Stofen Gold and Green series - more limiting) or reflector.

Nadine brings up a good point about the 10D. To avoid the FEL dance (setting flash exposure lock off a mid tone at the subject distance, reframe to shoot the shot), either use manual focus or set focus to operate via CF 4 on the * button and release the button before shooting. This has the effect of forcing the 10D into a centre weighted metering mode for flash, and calls for less fiddling with flash exposure compensation to get good shots.

Shoot flash in M. I never used more than ISO 400 with the 10D and flash. I second the above suggestions to use shutter speeds in the 1/30 to 1/120 range as needed to control the ambient/background exposure. Adjust FEC for the desired results, but I'd usually start at a +1 setting.

j. orrand - shoot in manual mode for starters.

 

2nd, there is NOTHING SPECIAL about any particular aperture. it all has to do with how the ambient and the flash light relate to each other, and how good you are at mixing the two, and how much depth of field you want or not want.

 

if you are having trouble with hotspots and you can't bounce off the ceiling, then use a big bounce card. ideally, you could have an assistant hold a big white sheet above the flash and tilted 45 degree forward - it becomes like a big softbox (and also sucks power from your flash).

I shoot similar stuff but with white walls. I bought some screw in flash slaves that I mount high, point at the back wall, control with barn doors and diffuse with sail material.

 

On camera, I bounce the flash off a lumiquest, flash on manual, and use a flash meter to check exposure from the 3 or 4 places I plan to shoot from, then shoot some test shots to see if I am close enough. I shoot in raw to adjust for ambient light shifts.

 

hope helpful.

Many thanks for all the suggestions, and for not beating me up on this question.

 

I'll shoot the next event in M. I should have known that CF and AV mode deal was whacky, I just didn't trust myself enough to know more than the camera.

 

Thanks again for all the great tips.