Rank beginner-level flash

cab.in.boston

This week I just got an SB600 for my Nikon D90. I have played around with it a bit at home, still learning and a heck of a long way to go! Tomorrow I will be going to a Halloween party for my 2.5 y/o and her friends. I will bring the flash, and I would love a couple of entry-level tips. I know there are books and websites dealing with flash techniques. I've read through some and I'll read more, but at this point in my "career," I am dealing with baby steps and I need some experience before I really understand what I'm doing. Experience is the best teacher, and I'm working on that, but I'd like to have a couple of really simple things in my bag of tricks that hopefully will help me get some encouraging results.

I tend to use matrix metering, single-point AF, and shoot in aperture-priority mode. I'm experimenting a bit with MF, but with a bunch of hyper toddlers running around, I imagine I won't have the time to carefully focus. I'll be using either the Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 or Nikkor 35mm f/1.8.

So my basic questions are, when using the diffuser, should I aim the flash head directly at the subject? The corollary is that if I want to bounce the flash, should I remove the diffuser? I'll play around as much as I can, but a few elementary tips would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

Scott_Quier

Shooting in dark environs with flash - not a good idea to shoot aperture priority. This will cause your shutter speed to go way toooo low.

Shoot with your camera in full manual mode. Select your shutter speed. Something between 1/60 and 1/200 would be a good starting point. Then select your aperture. The larger your aperture (the smaller the aperture number) the better your chances that your flash will be able to keep up with you. An ISO of either 400 or 800 would most likely be a good place to start as well. This, combined with the slower shutter speeds, will help you capture some of the background and not just that illuminated by the flash.

Don't know what you are talking about when you mention a diffuser - there are so many around. When I shoot indoors, a simple white 3"x5" (or 5"x7", or even a piece of 8.5" x 11" folded twice) card attached (with a rubber band or two) to the flash head, with flash head pointed at the ceiling or light colored wall, will goes a long way to getting some nice light on the scene. All of my flashes have at least 2 rubber bands on them at all times, for just such a situation.

When it comes to a choice between bouncing and direct flash, that's an easy one. Bouncing will almost always give better light. Bounced the right way, you will get some quite interesting shadows rather than the flat light than an on-camera (external or on-board) flash directed at your subject will generate.

Shoot RAW to give you more lattitude to correct any exposure issues during post processing.

Good luck and HTH

cab.in.boston wrote:

This week I just got an SB600 for my Nikon D90. I have played around with it a bit at home, still learning and a heck of a long way to go! Tomorrow I will be going to a Halloween party for my 2.5 y/o and her friends. I will bring the flash, and I would love a couple of entry-level tips. I know there are books and websites dealing with flash techniques. I've read through some and I'll read more, but at this point in my "career," I am dealing with baby steps and I need some experience before I really understand what I'm doing. Experience is the best teacher, and I'm working on that, but I'd like to have a couple of really simple things in my bag of tricks that hopefully will help me get some encouraging results.

I tend to use matrix metering, single-point AF, and shoot in aperture-priority mode. I'm experimenting a bit with MF, but with a bunch of hyper toddlers running around, I imagine I won't have the time to carefully focus. I'll be using either the Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 or Nikkor 35mm f/1.8.

So my basic questions are, when using the diffuser, should I aim the flash head directly at the subject? The corollary is that if I want to bounce the flash, should I remove the diffuser? I'll play around as much as I can, but a few elementary tips would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

cab.in.boston

Scott_Quier wrote:

Shooting in dark environs with flash - not a good idea to shoot aperture priority. This will cause your shutter speed to go way toooo low.

It won't necessarily be really dark. The party will be during the day, and it's 2-3 year old kids, so it's mostly just an excuse for the parents to dress them up in costumes, we're not making it spooky or scary for the kids.

Shoot with your camera in full manual mode. Select your shutter speed. Something between 1/60 and 1/200 would be a good starting point.

I have my camera set to a longest shutter speed of 1/60 when using flash.

Then select your aperture. The larger your aperture (the smaller the aperture number) the better your chances that your flash will be able to keep up with you. An ISO of either 400 or 800 would most likely be a good place to start as well. This, combined with the slower shutter speeds, will help you capture some of the background and not just that illuminated by the flash.

Thanks for mentioning ISO... I try to keep it lower than 800, but sometimes I forget that I'm inside and leave it at 200. I'll have to remember to raise it some if it's not very bright. ...lots to think about...

Don't know what you are talking about when you mention a diffuser - there are so many around.

Of course. Silly of me not so specify. I have just a simple translucent plastic diffuser:



It's called a "Bounce Diffuser," so I guess that might help answer my initial question.

When I shoot indoors, a simple white 3"x5" (or 5"x7", or even a piece of 8.5" x 11" folded twice) card attached (with a rubber band or two) to the flash head, with flash head pointed at the ceiling or light colored wall, will goes a long way to getting some nice light on the scene. All of my flashes have at least 2 rubber bands on them at all times, for just such a situation.

Interesting. I would have thought that the paper/card would block too much of the light for that to be effective.

When it comes to a choice between bouncing and direct flash, that's an easy one. Bouncing will almost always give better light. Bounced the right way, you will get some quite interesting shadows rather than the flat light than an on-camera (external or on-board) flash directed at your subject will generate.

Excellent. This definitely helps. I was thinking that the diffuser would allow direct aim at the subject. I'll keep this in mind.

Shoot RAW to give you more lattitude to correct any exposure issues during post processing.

I always do shoot RAW, although I haven't yet gotten into very much PP; I only have the basic software that came with the camera.

Good luck and HTH

Definitely does, thanks a ton!

Scott_Quier

cab.in.boston wrote:

Scott_Quier wrote:

When I shoot indoors, a simple white 3"x5" (or 5"x7", or even a piece of 8.5" x 11" folded twice) card attached (with a rubber band or two) to the flash head, with flash head pointed at the ceiling or light colored wall, will goes a long way to getting some nice light on the scene. All of my flashes have at least 2 rubber bands on them at all times, for just such a situation.

Interesting. I would have thought that the paper/card would block too much of the light for that to be effective.

I think you're not seeing it. Step by step:

• Mount flash on camera
• With camera held in "landscape" orientation, point the flash head straight up at the ceiling
• Put a rubber band on the flash head
• Attache the card to the back of the flash so that it doesn't block the light from flashing the ceiling, it' pointing straight up as well. This presents a surface to catch "scatter light" from the flash and bounce it towards your subject.

What this gets you is most of the light from your flash is bounced off the ceiling. Un-mitigated, this will cause shadows under the brows of your subjects. With the card attached to the back of the flash, you get enough light projecting forward to partially fill those shadows.

JohnBiggs

Cab. See this post for an idea of how the paper should look. This is just a fancier version of the same thing.

http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=1248155&postcount=5

Cab. You say it won't be too dark. If it's indoors, then it's too dark. Don't rely on your eyes.

Put the camera in manual. Although the camera is in manual, your exposure is not. See with the camera in manual, then all the calculations are left to just flash power. It's less to worry about and less for the camera to screw up.

Set your shutter to 1/60, ISO at least 400, and with the flash off take a shot. How underexposed is it? You would want to raise the ISO or lower your aperture number until you get to 1 stop under if possible. Then turn on the flash and let-er-rip.

Scott_Quier

That link shows the light scoop. The card is oriented in similar fashion, but much small and less intrusive.

As John says, put the camera in manual. This allows you to set the shutter/aperture/ISO once and forget it (at least until the light changes or you change where you are shooting) and only worry about the flash exposure. Once you have set your s/a/i to suit you, you then adjust the power of the flash to light the subject the way you want it to look, usually using something like Flash Exposure Compensation (that's what Canon calls it, don't know what Nikon calls it).

JohnBiggs

Scott_Quier wrote:

That link shows the light scoop. The card is oriented in similar fashion, but much small and less intrusive.

Yep, I just wanted to give him an idea of what we are talking about as far as horizontal and vertical orientation with the paper strapped to the flash.

cab.in.boston

I see. Thanks, guys. Yes, obviously I thought you meant to shoot *through* the paper... Wouldn't a plastic diffuser such as I pictured accomplish somewhat the same thing, spreading light forward as well as to the ceiling to bounce?

John, I realize that being inside means the light is not great, I only meant to differentiate between what might typically be thought of as a "Halloween party" and what we'll be doing. When someone says Halloween party, I can imagine thinking very dark, spooky, etc.

Anyway, I'm going to play around a bit and practice... Thanks again!

JohnBiggs

I think a piece of paper will do better than that diffuser

pathfinder

I agree with John and Scott. Although I actually use a white foamie that is 2mm thick or so, but functions like a piece of white paper

Scott_Quier

pathfinder wrote:

I agree with John and Scott. Although I actually use a white foamie that is 2mm thick or so, but functions like a piece of white paper

I also use a white foamie, but I perceived that OP was in something of a time crunch. Getting to a craft store for the foamie, cutting it to size, etc might be more than time allowed. Everyone has a spare sheet of 8"x11.5" paper laying around the house - so that's what I offered up.

cab.in.boston

So yesterday afternoon I set up a trial where I posed a few of my daughter's dolls and shot with a lot of different flash setups - bounce with and without diffuser, flash head pointed straight up, rotated 90 degrees, using the rubber band/paper method, etc, etc... just to check out the different looks. My wife and I looked at the results, and we decided that we preferred bouncing off the ceiling with the diffuser on more than with the paper, so I decided to use that method for the party today.

I set manual mode, ISO 400, 1/200s, f/4. Started out fine, I got a few cute shots.





I know what you guys mean about the shadows all coming from the top, but for whatever reason, we didn't like the look of the paper card reflector. I'll continue to play around with my technique, and I'll try out the reflector more.

Then about ten minutes after we got there, my flash started freaking out on me, and I had absolutely no idea what it was doing. It was non-responsive, I had to pull the batteries out to get it to turn off. I finally realized that it was just a case of dead batteries (all that practice shooting... d'oh), but for some reason it wasn't giving me the "BATT" warning, it was just getting hung up. Anyway, like a total newbie dingbat, I had run the batteries down and not brought spares.

So I spent the rest of the time using the pop-up flash and feeling like a moron. Oh, well. First thing I did when I got home was put the dead batteries in the charger and the spare set in the camera bag.

Scott_Quier

cab.in.boston wrote:

So I spent the rest of the time using the pop-up flash and feeling like a moron. Oh, well. First thing I did when I got home was put the dead batteries in the charger and the spare set in the camera bag.

I've found the best practice is to charge them as part of the "getting ready" process. But, that pre-supposes that you'll know when you next need them. Little girls (and boys too!) are notorious for not giving you any notice before they do that "cute thing you just have to get a picture of!"

cab.in.boston

Scott_Quier wrote:

I've found the best practice is to charge them as part of the "getting ready" process. But, that pre-supposes that you'll know when you next need them. Little girls (and boys too!) are notorious for not giving you any notice before they do that "cute thing you just have to get a picture of!"

That's why I bought two sets of rechargeable NiMH batteries, I just neglected to ensure the spare set was in the bag. And I made sure to have both camera batteries charged. That really isn't a big issue, as a charge on that battery usually lasts us for a few days at least. Oh, well, lesson learned.

Qarik

cab.in.boston wrote:

So yesterday afternoon I set up a trial where I posed a few of my daughter's dolls and shot with a lot of different flash setups - bounce with and without diffuser, flash head pointed straight up, rotated 90 degrees, using the rubber band/paper method, etc, etc... just to check out the different looks. My wife and I looked at the results, and we decided that we preferred bouncing off the ceiling with the diffuser on more than with the paper, so I decided to use that method for the party today.

I set manual mode, ISO 400, 1/200s, f/4. Started out fine, I got a few cute shots.





I know what you guys mean about the shadows all coming from the top, but for whatever reason, we didn't like the look of the paper card reflector. I'll continue to play around with my technique, and I'll try out the reflector more.

Then about ten minutes after we got there, my flash started freaking out on me, and I had absolutely no idea what it was doing. It was non-responsive, I had to pull the batteries out to get it to turn off. I finally realized that it was just a case of dead batteries (all that practice shooting... d'oh), but for some reason it wasn't giving me the "BATT" warning, it was just getting hung up. Anyway, like a total newbie dingbat, I had run the batteries down and not brought spares.

So I spent the rest of the time using the pop-up flash and feeling like a moron. Oh, well. First thing I did when I got home was put the dead batteries in the charger and the spare set in the camera bag.

here is why you didn't like the the paper method. The flash get bounced off the ceiling and some of the light goes mostly forward from the paper. But not much of the light get thrown sidesway or backwards.

The "bounce" diffuser you have throws light up, some forward, some backwards, some sideways...but not as much forward as the paper. This diffuser evens the light out more then the paper method since it is relfecting off more surfaces.

But this "bounce" diffuser wil lhave limitations. Note that the entire flash head is covered and so you lose light. When things get darker, or cieling get higher, or walls farther out, you may not have enough flash power to to bounce off the ceiling and you may not have enough light being thrown forward and this may casue underexposure. You try to adjust for this with iso or shutter speed and you may end up with noise or motion blur.

The bounce diffuser may work but not in all scenarios.

The more efficient and better diffusers in this regard are ones with open "tops", ie ones that let all the light through the top for the ceiling bounce and bigger surface areas vertically that throw light forward and around the room. For example teh gary fong sphere is perfect example. most of teh light passes through for bounce and some light gets thrown all around the room. Don't let Tim Kampinen tell you any different.

cab.in.boston

Qarik wrote:

here is why you didn't like the the paper method.....

Excellent description, makes perfect sense to me, thank you very much! I have heard about the Gary Fong diffusers, but wasn't really sure about them. If I'd read this description a couple of weeks ago, I probably would have spent the extra $20 or whatever it was for the Fong. Oh well, I figured I can always change diffusers cheaply in the future.