What aperture to use for reception? Very frustrated?

[brandon_andreadakis]

<p>Hello, I just shot a black tie affair located in the host's mansion. They were friends of friends and were kind enough to hire me so I could begin building my event portfolio. I was also invited to the party, so I didn't want to bring tons of equipment, etc. So, I brought my Nikon D90 and my Nikkor 14-24 2.8. I figured the lens would be the best combination as I could do large group shots and have a fast lens. I used an SB-800 as my sole source of illumination. I kept the stock Nikon diffusion dome on it, but most of the time I was bouncing it off of some wall as the entire home was white. <br>

My pictures were VERY inconsistent. Earlier in the day (when the sun was still coming through the windows), my images were overexposed with hot spots on foreheads, etc even though I bounced the flash. I started off shooting at ISO 200 at f9. However, as it became darker, my exposure times were getting a bit slow so I switched to f3.5 or something at ISO 400. I think that only gave me 125th. What I never realized before is that when the SB-800 is attached, even in TTL mode, the light meter will still read underexposed, so it is hard to know what is proper exposure without using an external light meter. The later it got, the worse my numbers got. I looked over my images today and was extremely disappointed. There are ones where only one person in the group is in focus. I guess I was using too large an aperture. But how am I supposed to know? The tiny LCD doesn't really help. The image looked in focus on the camera, but on the computer one person's eyes were perfectly sharp and another person standing 2 feet away was blurry. Was I supposed to be shooting at ISO 1000 or something? Basically, what I am asking is what settings do you use for a VERY dimly lit reception hall. I want something with a fast enough shutter speed to freeze dancing. Thanks!</p>

[pete_s.]

<p>Hi Brandon,</p>

<p>Shooting in dark venues with people wearing all black or all white are common problems the wedding and event shooter will encounter. Thing is that you need to learn your equipment and what you need to do in different scenarios to get the results you want. There are no magic settings.</p>

<ul>

<li>Regarding DOF you need to know before shooting what will work depending on aperture, focal length and subject distance. </li>

<li>Same thing with subject motion and slow shutter speeds. </li>

<li>And camera shake and slow shutter speeds too. </li>

<li>You also need to figure out how far you can push your camera in the iso department depending on your image quality demands and post processing skills. </li>

<li>Regarding focus you need to find out what focus modes and focus points will work in low light depending on your camera and lenses.</li>

<li>Regarding flash you need to find out how much compensation you need for the flash to get the proper exposure depending on the scene and subject brightness.</li>

</ul>

<p>What you are asking is not just what aperture to use but rather how to shoot events in low light. That is enough to fill a book :-)</p>

<p>Why not post an example image and you could get some input on that particular image and how to improve it?</p>

 

[picturesque]

<p>You select apertures based on the DOF you need for the shot. With digital, it is great that we can use varying ISOs to suit the light level <strong>so that </strong>we can get the aperture we need for the shot.</p>

<p>I suggest you study a couple of things. First would be DOF, which is affected by 3 things--subject distance, focal length used and aperture used. When you understand DOF, you will know ("How am I supposed to know?"). Realize that a cropped sensor camera has 'more' DOF than a full frame camera. Don't blame the LCD--it isn't meant to tell you whether you missed focus or whether there isn't enough DOF. Again, when you understand DOF, you will know and won't have to rely on the LCD.</p>

<p>I also suspect you don't have a clear concept of dragging the shutter and how flash freezes subject motion and in what circumstances. As the lighting goes from fairly bright to dim, you have to know how to go from setting shutter speeds to freeze motion based on the ambient light (and using flash as fill, all the while using apertures to get you the needed DOF) to gradually and subtlety using flash as main light and possibly dragging the shutter. If you just kept opening up the aperture as it got darker, obviously, you will run into DOF problems, particularly on shots that have any depth.</p>

<p>Using flash as a layer over ambient light regardless of need will definitely get your overexposed images, since light is additive. If your exposure is adequate for the ambient, and you add flash on top of that which hasn't been pulled back, you will definitely get overexposure. Bouncing alone will not do anything to affect flash exposure. Also, with light coming into a room, you need to account for that light when it is on subjects. If you are using automated exposure metering for the ambient light, it will normally go for some in between exposure, overexposing highlights yet still underexposing shadows.</p>

<p>Do some searches on these forums regarding dragging the shutter.</p>

[picturesque]

<p>Here's one to get you started.</p>

<p><a href="00PFGA">http://www.photo.net/wedding-photography-forum/00PFGA</a></p>

[Jerry_]

<p>And to add: the SB-800 is a fill-flash device -- not a *flash-bulb* unit. If you practice some, try using the 'S' mode at whatever ISO gets you to 1/80th second (or so,) and you will find the SB-800 can add enough light to create a natural-looking image exposure wise. The room light and the SB-800 light will mix together fairly well.</p>

<p>And you may find something like a AF 35mm f2D lens a bit better for indoor flash work.</p>

[xiao_xiao3]

I read your article, I do not know what to say, in photography it easy I am not familiar, but I think this can help you.

<a rel="nofollow" href="00PFGA">http://www.photo.net/wedding-photography-forum/00PFGA</a>

[frank_skomial]

<p><em>"as it became darker, my exposure times were getting a bit slow so I switched" - </em>you were using flash, so why bother paying attention at ambient light, if you say:<br>

<em>"I used an SB-800 as my sole source of illumination" -</em> apparently you were also trying to use ambient static light since you were fiddling with the aperture, and were bothered by reading numbers: "<em>The later it got, the worse my numbers got</em>."<br>

"<em>the light meter will still read underexposed, so it is hard to know" </em>-how does it apply if you use flash as main source of light.</p>

<p>These and other of your statemenst indicate that you do not understands how the flash and camera work together, were uncomfortable shooting, and lack of your understanding caused that you did things that you were not supposed to do.</p>

<p>You have already great advice given, but basically use flash in iTTl/BL mode if you want to include ambient static light and flash, and iTTL if you depend mainly on flash lighting. Then when you get sufficient experience and understanding, you may try to balance on your own.</p>

<p>Your short zoom lens is very good and has wide Delpth Of Field (DOF), even if wide open, if taken from a distance that does not cause geometrical distortion of people. If you need wider DOF then close the lens one or two stops, and increase ISO. At ISO 800 you should be able to get good quality pictures with D90.</p>

[almorrisphotography]

<p>strobist.com</p>

[nick_alamanos]

<p>My First wedding i shot last year, I used my 5D mark ii with an on camera flash. My setting on the 5d were aperature priotity and auto iso. Results, my images were all over the place. Some under exposed, some over exposed.<br>

The next event i shot, I decided to put everything in manual. First, thing I did was expose to the background, (under exposed background by 1.5 stops). So my camera settings ended up being 2.8, 1/80, 2000 iso for expample. The flash was left in autmode, it did the rest, by itself.<br>

As far as aperature, i pretty much left it at 2.8 when working with the 24-70.</p>

 

[picturesque]

<p>Strobist is good, but better for wedding and event photographers is Neil van Niekerk's 'how to' articles and blog.</p>

[picturesque]

<p>Re-reading your question, I think the two issues to research are DOF and dragging the shutter.</p>

<p>Re DOF--here are some practical thoughts. Following your thinking on the use of the 14-28mm lens, which for your camera is a 21mm-36mm lens in full frame terms--say you pick f2.8 to use on group shots. At 14mm, for a group shot where you are standing 5 feet away from your group, the DOF is 5.38 feet. All well and good--plenty of DOF. Given the same subject distance of 5 feet, you zoom to 24mm, your DOF is now 1.51 feet. So if your group had any depth to it--people standing closer and farther away from you--it very well could mean one face is in focus and the others aren't. I suggest you go to dofmaster.com, read, and use the online DOF calculator to get an idea of the kinds of DOF you get in typical circumstances.</p>

<p>When shooting events, it is efficient to settle on a handful of apertures that you know will cover the typical situations. For instance, I shoot full frame, and when shooting dancing shots I actually use f5.6, because I like to get in close for these shots, even though I'm shooting wide, and when people are dancing with partners (fast dancing) they aren't always parallel to the plane of the camera sensor. Using the same subject distance above, for 28mm, my DOF is still only 3.62 feet, probably enough to keep an oblique angled dancing couple in focus, whereas if I used f2.8, 1.66 feet DOF would not.</p>

<p>When I do table shots or casual 'at table' shots, where I sometimes zoom in on couples' faces, I switch to f8, even though something wider will get my full table shots just fine, because then, I don't have to keep switching apertures if I did want to zoom into a 70mm shot of a couple's faces, where, if I was standing 6 feet away (across the table), f8 still only gives me 1.04 feet of DOF, and at round tables, with oblique angles, a couple's faces could well be close to a foot apart.</p>

<p>Re dragging the shutter--to freeze people dancing without dragging the shutter, you'd probably need to be using 1/1000th or something like that to freeze the 'across the camera plane' arm motions with fast dancing. Obviously event photographers in dim reception halls aren't using these fast shutter speeds with flash. What they are doing is relying upon the flash duration (which is very, very short) to freeze subject motion while underexposing the ambient or background exposure, which allows the flash duration exposure to be prominent. Read the old thread I linked to above.</p>

[brandon_andreadakis]

<p>I am doing a lot of reading and playing around with my camera. I just dimmed the lights in a room of my house to roughly the brightness of a dim reception hall. Just metering the room (without flash), to shoot at 125th (the slowest I am really comfortable hand-holding) I need f3.5 and ISO Hi1. I must be missing something. There is no way I could capture fast dancing at 125th. I have seen shots where someone is captured midair in a dark hall, so there must be a way. BTW I am using a Nikon D90 and a 18-70 right now for experimental purposes. </p>

[brandon_andreadakis]

<p>Also, how should the flash be set during the reception...meaning with the head pointed straight up with the flash card up and wide-angle reflector put away, pointed directly at subject, etc, after-market diffusion dome, Nikon factory diffusion dome, etc. I am referring to when walking around capturing couples, dancing, etc. </p>

[picturesque]

<p>Yes, you are missing something. Read the linked thread and the last paragraph of my last post. If you understand those, you will understand that capturing/freezing a subject in midair in a dark hall with flash isn't done using the metered ambient EV.</p>

<p>Then worry about how to set the flash and what modifier to use, because that depends on how you like your lighting.</p>

[brandon_andreadakis]

<p>I understand the concept of freezing motion with flash duration. I use this technique in studio work. However, I have ample time to meter the subject, etc to know that I am going to get a properly exposed image. What I don't understand is how to meter lets say: shooting a group of people dancing somewhat fast in a circle in a dim hall. Let's say the circle is 6 feet in diameter (at a minimum). I want everyone exposed properly. I am 12 feet away. Having played with my D90, I think the max ISO I would be comfortable with would be 1600. To get the depth of field with let's say a 50 mm lens, I am assuming I would need at least f9. The camera is going to show something rediculously slow for shutter speed or just say lo (underexposure). How do I trust that the flash will expose everything properly. I guess looking at histograms and the image afterwards on the LCD, but sometimes the LCD is misleading and to be honest I don't fully understand the histogram. </p>

[brandon_andreadakis]

<p>I know I need to learn technique before worrying about this but another (possibly for another thread) issue I am having is that the SB-800 takes ridiculously long to recycle (I am used to studio strobes). The best shots to capture always seem to happen while I am waiting for recycling. How do you all deal with this? Battery pack? If so, which one?</p>

[pete_s.]

<p>When shooting you need to adapt your shooting to the situation and equipment you have at hand, not the other way around.</p>

<p>If you absolutely want to shoot with a 50mm at f/8 (I rounded it) with maximum ISO1600 those setting are what you have to shoot with.</p>

<p>Let's say you set the shutter speed to 1/60s. That means that the ambient exposure is 6 (f/8) + 6 (1/60s) - 4 (ISO1600) = 8 EV. The light levels you mentioned earlier was around EV5 which is pretty standard. So you underexpose ambient with three stops giving you dark backgrounds and only minimal subject motion as the flash is three stops over ambient.</p>

<p>Push the shutter speed to 1/30s and the background will be two stops underexposed but still register and the flash will still do a good job of freezing the motion.</p>

<p>Or you change the scenario. For example go wide at 24mm, f/2.8, ISO1600, 1/125s. Now ambient is one stop under but as you are shooting wider you also get less subject motion.<br /> There are many ways to do this.</p>

<p> </p>

[picturesque]

<p>Brandon--I don't think you do understand the concept of freezing motion with flash duration, or you would not be puzzled about shutter speed being too slow to stop motion. Your example is not a good one to use, because it introduces another 'problem' with flash, which is the inability of flash to 'properly' expose many subjects/objects at various distances from the flash source.</p>

<p>Instead of a circle of people, use a single person or two people relatively on the same plane. If the ambient light reads ISO 1600, f5.6 (just as an example), 1/8th, you know that you will not be freezing subject motion just using ambient light. Underexpose that ambient by 2 stops (or more) so that you now have ISO 1600, f5.6, 1/30th, take the picture with the <strong>correct</strong> flash exposure (which is determined by f stop and not shutter speed), and you should have a motion frozen subject with no ghosting or blur, even though 1/30th may not be fast enough to hand hold or slow enough to expose for the ambient light level.</p>

<p>Why does this happen? Because the duration of electronic flash as implemented in hotshoe flash (technically not the same for studio flash) is very, very short. It is the flash duration, since it is allowed to be dominant, that freezes your subject. Think of it as having two shutter speeds working in the same photo. One is the actual shutter speed. The other is the flash duration.</p>

<p>Did you read the linked thread? In particular, my response on April 22, 2008 @ 6:18pm.</p>

<p>Re the circle of people in your example--everyone will not be properly exposed due to flash fall off. With flash dominant, it can be correct for any single plane, but not for all of the depth of the circle of people. The people farther away will be underexposed, the people closest will be overexposed, depending upon how the flash decided on exposure (assuming automated flash metering).</p>

<p>Some of the above can be mitigated by bouncing the flash, where you are 'projecting' the light source to a spot, such as on the ceiling, that mitigates flash fall off.</p>

<p>If you are actually using f9 and bouncing flash, I am not surprised your SB-800 takes long to recycle. Probably takes 3 seconds for a full power recycle, which can seem like an eternity. Using higher ISO and wider apertures takes the load off the flash, which is why most people are not using small apertures like f9, even at high ISO. In addition, over time you will burn up your flash and one day, the bulb will pop. The SB-800 does not have the thermal switch off that the SB-900 does. I also suggest you start using Eneloops and an intelligent charger to help cut down on burning up your flash and to get good recycle times that don't decay like alkalines. External packs will help--I think Nikon has one, actually that uses NiMH batteries (Eneloops are the slow discharge NiMH type). The recycle time for a full power flash should come down to about a second. But try Eneloops first.</p>

[pete_s.]

<p>Recycle speed is slow because the flash has to work hard. Kick up the iso, open the aperture, take off the omnibounce and focus the flash beam with the zoom. Or get a high voltage battery pack for your flash. And make sure you use rechargable NiMh batteries.</p>

 

[indraneel]

<p>+1 strobist.com</p>

<p>I just finished watching the DVDs this morning! Learnt a lot from the outdoor shoot examples about mixing ambient and flash in rapidly changing light. All of the OP's questions are answered on the DVD's!</p>

[indraneel]

<p>Thanks Nadine for the Neil van Niekerk link. I'm quickly reading up everything there. I've been searching for someplace that explains the fundamentals of light quality for so long... the examples on that site are so ... creamy! I like it much better than the strobist.com (and my own) somewhat harsh lighting.</p>

[markonestudios]

<p>Brandon, I encourage you to read the links Nadine has posted. I agree that strobist.com is brilliant, but it covers a wide gamut and introduces more variables than you're probably able to handle right now.<br>

<br />Also, slow down! :) You need to solve one problem before you can move to the next. For instance, wanting a 1/125 shutter speed in a dark room is a very tall order for a solitary SB-800 IMO. That alone would be sucking up your battery life like mad.</p>

<p>For what you want to achieve, it seems that you may require a supplemental, off-camera lighting solution but I don't think you have yet got to grips with the single on-cam flash you're using right now, so you would be ill-advised to move to multiple flashes just now. I would also advocate for shooting in manual mode for both the camera and the flash...</p>

[cliff_nj]

<p>I didn't see anyone recommend the great book, "Light: Science and Magic". I do.</p>

[brandon_andreadakis]

<p>I got the DVD "Light" by David Honl yesterday. What a joke! I want my money back. I was just sitting there watching going..."really? really?". He didn't describe ANYTHING. It was just a series of shoots and interviews with F list celebrities and a segment on cooking. </p>

[picturesque]

<p>I don't think anyone here recommended the Honl DVD, particularly to answer any of your questions here.</p>

<p>To repeat--Neil van Niekerk's series first, strobist second, "Light, Science and Magic" is also a good book. The latter two are much more generalized and not specific to weddings and events. You will have to dig around and be able to apply concepts to your situation, whereas the van Niekerk's material is pretty specific.</p>