The same light in the entire room?

<p>Hi.<br>

Tomorrow i'm going to take photos of 3-4 people in a room (No idea what size).<br>

But when I use the SB910 flash on a tripod with a shoot through umbrella or use the umbrella as a reflector, the light lands on the people, but then the rest of the room doesn't get lit the same way. It's looks to dark. <br>

Should I turn up the ISO to control the ambient light more?<br>

Or how can I make the room equally lit all over it it's possible?<br>

<br />Thank you.<br>

/S</p>

<p>The basic instructions are: Find an ISO setting, and a shutter speed that gives you an acceptable background, and use the flash just to fill the faces. You may find bouncing the flash behind you fills the room better than aiming it at the people involved.</p>

<p>Thank you Peter. Will practice shooting it behind me:-)</p>

<p>Look up 'inverse square law' as it applies to lighting. It's impossible to make one light source evenly light a whole room. Light must have an origin, and that origin will be brighter than areas further away from it. So your one little speedlight won't light up an entire room evenly - no matter how expensive it was to buy. Sorry, but that's the laws of physics for you.</p>

<p>If you're going to push the ISO and exposure up until it's correct for the ambient light, then what use is your flash? You'll just end up with a colour balance problem from using mixed lighting.</p>

<p>Hi Joe (was about to write Hey Joe) :-)<br>

Thank you for the advice. Yes your right. I only bring the flash in case I need to shoot at f.8 and to look more "pro". My Nikon D600 will do the job without. But I really want to start using flash light and learn all I can about it. So I appreciate every advice, like this one.<br>

Thank you.<br>

/S.</p>

My general way of working is to light in layers. In your situations light the background and the foreground separately.

<p><em>I only bring the flash in case I need to shoot at f.8 and to look more "pro". My Nikon D600 will do the job without.</em></p>

<p>Even if the combination of the ambient light levels, your desired working aperture, and your camera's performance at ISO 800 or whatever mean you don't need the flash, the simple reality is that good pictures depend largely on good light, and it's usually easier to make good light (with a flash) than to happen upon it or to control ambient light to make it good. Even when there's plenty of ambient light and I can control it reasonably well, I often like a little flash for fill.</p>

<p>By the way, if the background looks too dark, you may find that even a cheap optical slave flash can be placed to light the background in a way that produces a look preferable to whatever you're getting (or are likely to get, with standard techniques) without one. The whole 'set the shutter speed for the background and adjust the flash power to light the subject as you want, based on your aperture' mantra works great for distant backgrounds (if you can flash-sync with the shutter speed you need), but can be tougher to use in a smallish room.</p>

<p><em>was about to write Hey Joe) :-)</em></p>

<p>Hey Joe, where you going' with that flash-gun in your hand?</p>

 

<p>"Hey Joe, where you going' with that flash-gun in your hand?" - Gonna shoot my woman of course. Silly question.</p>

<p>Yes for inverse square law. So one way to use this law to your advantage in this situation is to keep the people close to the back wall around 6 feet or so and make sure your umbrella light is at least 12 to 15 feet in front of the people. This way the light will be even and the light fall off will be gradual and will light the background as well.</p>

<p>pulling the light back will just spread the amount of light you have to a bigger area giving the whole place less light (need to crank ISO). ideally you really need at least a second light.</p>

<p>Ely thats the whole point.. too spread the light.. one obviously needs to either increase the power or up the iso. Adding a second light or even 10 lights is not going to light the area behind the subject if all those lights are close to the subject and the subject is farther from the back wall. Read about the inverse square law. If you were referring to the second light as a back light then that is not the answer to the post "the same light in the entire room."</p>

<p>Thank you once again for all the good advice. </p>

<p>I use bounce flash a lot when shooting a small group of people. I use a camera mounted Nikon flash aimed at the ceiling. You can blend this with ambient light by playing around with settings so the flash balances with the ambient This shot: <a href="/photo/14534953">http://www.photo.net/photo/14534953</a> was done that way.</p>