Moving "beyond" snapshots

divamum

Perhaps this should have gone in technique, but since it's people orientated, I've put it here (mods, feel free to move if better sited elsewhere).

Once you've learned enough to know how it "ought to be done", how do you go back to capturing efficient snapshots that DON'T just stick the camera on auto and use direct flash?! :scratch

I recently wound up on another GS outing with my daughter, where I was the only one with a camera, and it was asked if I would take as many shots as I could.

The girls are doing a project on Greece and went first to an Orthodox service (no pictures, of course, but a fascinating - if long - experience!) and then on to a restaurant nearby in the "Greektown" district. The restaurant had white stucco walls, but a dark brown wood ceiling; the walls were broken by arches in many places. Ambient light was terrible.

To try and capture some context shots I used my 17-50 2.8. I had the 430ex in the hotshoe. I tried my best to bounce, but the ceiling was a lost cause (dark brown wood panelling), and one of the big arches (just off camera right in these shots) meant I didn't have a wall where I most needed it. Also, unlike my usual approach with portraits, I was using a MUCH wider angle and didn't guess how to judge my FEC very well. To be frank, a lot of these were really, REALLY bad.

Some examples:

An attempt to bounce off the available wall to camera left (corrected - I mistakenly typed "right" initially). I don't remember what the FEC was, but is this just a case of not having enough flashpower to reach far enough? FL is 17mm, and it was f2.8+1/40 (hence the questionable DOF)



Another (f5.6+1/100)


Clearly this one is underexposed, but shouldn't the ETTL flash have compensated by pumping out more light for me?

In theory, I understand how to use my bounced flash - I'd say that I'm getting pretty comfortable with the planetneil approach of scanning for any light-coloured surface that can work as a bounce source, and angling the flash head as needed. I work the FEC on my flash pretty confidently and I'm ok shooting in manual.

But I find these kinds of situations very difficult and am unhappy with the results I get. I got a few ok individual shots (I'm more used to shooting those shots and could simply apply basic portraiture skills 101 to them, using the white walls to help me along and not worrying so much about really sharp DOF), but I find these kinds of snapshot situations bewildering and get a LOT of badly underexposed shots; I reckon I'd probably hvae done better to go on automatic.... which really bugs me :rolleyes:rofl.

Would LOVE thoughts on how to handle this type of situation for the future, bearing in mind that I frequently won't have a monopod or a range of lenses, and that they only "need" to be good snapshots, not "great art". But I guess the reason I'm asking the question is I'm no longer satisfied by "decent snapshots" - I want everything I take to be above a certain baseline of technical proficiency!!!

Bsimon

1st-Subscribed, and thanks for posting this question

2nd-For me at least, this is one of the few situations in which my GF light sphere shines. When I don't have a suitable 'bounceable' wall or the ceilings are sky high. I shoot an SB-600 and am not familiar with it's cannon equivalent but as I understand it, the unit you have is similar in spec.

The lightsphere is able to illuminate the entire room when you are in that type of situation. It basically shoots light all around the room and would be great for this situation with no need for 'great art', rather, the need for great snapshots. I use the dome on top and point it strait up either in portrait or landscape mode depending on the situation. This GF sphere does use up a lot of the flash's power so the FEC is usually dialed up a bit, however I find I get fairly pleasing light when used for that purpose.

3rd-I tend to shoot in a-priority watching my shutter speed to make sure im around 1/60 to 1/125 and adjust ISO accordingly.

Hope any of this helps.

Looking forward to the other responses!

Elaine

My first thought was what Bsimon said...sounds like a good application for a Lightsphere or even a Stofen. Using Neil's techniques makes me kinda forget about those gadgets, but I think they can serve a purpose, and I think this may be it! Sure, there would probably be some flashy shadows, but in order for light to make its way around this room and reach all of the kids, I'm not sure how that can be avoided in a snapshot situation?

"I want everything I take to be above a certain baseline of technical proficiency!!!" I hear ya! And I'm anxious to hear what some others think about this!

rainbow

Both these shots would be tough for any flash arrangement because of the depth of lighting needed with kids in front and stretching to the back of the room.

I have a nice 580 EX II which I only use sparingly because I have yet to master the nuances of flash photography. Instead, I would have shot these without flash (if doable) with highest ISO that was practical. Or reposition yourself to minimize the DOF needed for either the flash or the aperture being used. Perhaps taking smaller groups of kids would help and then get them together for a posed group shot at the end. Any on-flash attachment would still suffer from the closer kids being much brighter than the farther ones.

Hope this helps.

adbsgicom

Make another mom an assistant to hold a reflector and bounce off that....

I think I would have just taken shots of smaller groups, bounced when I could, and opened the aperture and iso up to keep the flash contribution down when I couldn't. And if you had some other diffusion that would have perhaps helped.

In that last one where the flash should have compensated, if you heard a long whine from your flash, it means you shot as much light as it can muster and you were at the limit of the flash. One way to test is just move the flash to manual, fire off a shot at full power, and if it looks pretty much the same, you need to open the aperture or bump the iso up more.

sweet caroline

Here's what I do in a situation that doesn't allow me to put my flash on a stand- I hand hold it as high as I can with the lightsphere on it. I also take lots of shots focused on individuals and small groups, and just a few of the entire group together.

zoomer

Have you been experimenting with Commander mode, almost looks like you were and you left the flash settings there.
When this is what you are getting just put it on P and get the shots. Then when you get home figure out what the problem was and be more ready the next chance you get.
Looks like you needed more iso, and more flash power, the light will stretch much farther with higher iso.
Also make sure your flash is not set on something like 105mm which gives you a tunnel of light unlike the much broader coverage you would get if you flash was set at say...24mm.

divamum

Thanks for all the great responses - keep 'em coming!

@Bsimon. Lightsphere. Duh. Sadly, I didn't have miine with me (it's not part of my "travelling light" kit, although clearly I should change that).

@rainbow Shooting natural light wasn't an option - I'd kind of expected to go that route and had a 50 1.4 with me in addition to the 17-50 2.8, but there was nothing like enough light available, and I needed the wider angle anyway. Flash became a necessity.

@adbsgicom Ha! Sadly, invoking a production team wasn't really an option Biggest mistake was clearly sticking with too low an ISO - the shots would of course have been LESS noisy with higher ISO+good exposure than underexposed, but hindsight is 20/20.... and why I'm trying to figure out where I went wrong so that when I encounter similar conditions I can do a better job next time!

@Caroline - could only use the flash in the shoe - I didn't have my ste2 trigger with me (my camera does not have one built in and I was in "travel lite" mode, as mentioned above). I did get some ok individual ones, even though those weren't exposed as much to the right as I would like. Here's a series of the girls playing "Telephone" which are more acceptable, I think... or would be if I could get all the WB's to play nice (even if I match the numbers, they don't seem to match... which tells me my lighting was changing too much between shots, although I'm not sure why):



@Zoomer - Thanks for chiming in! I shoot Canon, so commander mode isn't something I even have :cry Wouldn't you want a deeper tunnel of light in a shot where the furthest subject is a long way away? I felt like I couldn't get enough light throw rather than light spread, even when I fired directly at them (which of course resulted in the front people looking like they were under interrogation, and the back folks still underlit).... or am I misinterpreting it? I didn't actually zoom the flash manually, so I assume it set itself for wideangle since the lens was set at 17mm.

Keep those replies coming! This is loads of great advice to file away for the next time I have to do something like this

Scott_Quier

I didn't see a mention of your ISO in your posts (would have made this a bit easier), but what I do see is significant light fall-off. In both of these shots, take a look at the distance between your light source (the wall in the first, the flash in the second) and your closest subject. Take a look at the distance between the light source and your most distant subject. When the ratio of those distances is 1:2, you will have one stop of light fall off.

In the second shot, it looks like you were seated at the table. The closest subject is that coffee cup. The furthest subject is the young lady at the opposite end of the table. It appears that this ratio is something close to 1:8 or 1:10 (maybe more) - which would lead to 3+ stops of light fall-off.

IMO, FWIW, I think your choice to shoot in manual mode is the ONLY way you had a chance. Shooting in Av, the camera is going to attempt to force a shutter speed WAY too slow. With Canon equipment, one shoots manual mode, selects the ISO, shutter speed, and aperture desired and the flash does it's best to make it happen. Modify the FEC to control the power of the flash and you have a winning combination - in most situations.

The only thing I can think of that might've helped is to increase your ISO to increase the ambient light contribution to the exposure. I don't think a GF LS would have helped in this case. In fact, I don't think there's any way to light this scene with just one flash.

Swartzy

To reiterate Scott's comment (in a different way)....it's all about balancing ambient with flash. The light fall off will typically give you the Kodak flash look.....jack up your ISO, allowing your meter to register light..even if 3 stops under, then think of where you would like the light to enter the frame. Better stated, think....."If I had an external light source, such as an umbrella with stand, where would I put it"?

This will help with the selection of lighting angle/reflection. Balancing ambient w/flash is the key.....making it look like flash was not used (if that's the desired look) takes some practice.

On the first shot, the idea should be, "How can I get the light to enter from the far CR corner coming in to the back of the table forward"? This exercise will afford you to get creative with your flash modifiers. A simple foamy, bouncing the light from the CR wall and ceiling (half way down the frame) would have illuminated the scene (with a higher ISO) and looked natural. Upping the FEC is generally required in such cases for distance light travel...also, keep in mind your aperture settings as this will control the distance of light exposure...why typically indoors we use a wider aperture in conjunction with higher ISO's.

kidzmom

This flash business isn't easy for me either. I can relate! I must say that Scott rung a good point about shooting in M. I went from Auto (months ago---I think Sept) directly to M. I really just wanted to dive in head first. I only recently started playing with Av and Tv..NOT IMPRESSED with these modes in flash. And particularly AV it seems to choose the completely wrong shutter speeds. I bought a speedlight 430EXII and it will take some getting used to. I'm really so natural light hungry...but perhaps with some practice I can get to like the look of the bounced or filtered (umbrella) flash. We'll see. I can see the use of TV with natural light though (my daughter does gymnastics and some is fast some is slow but it is all quick). Anyway, I do like that 2nd series you posted....with the whispering. My dd does this with her friends. SO awesome that you captured it so beautifully. Those look fab!

divamum

Thanks guys.

Firstly, correciton to my first post (which most of you probably realised was a typo since the light itself tells the story): I was bouncing off the wall camera LEFT, not right. Duh.

Scott, I clearly needed to bump up my ISO, which was only at 400. I was mistakenly thinking that if I kept the ISO moderate (to avoid noise), the flash would provide me with whatever extra light I needed. I wasn't worried about recycling times because I didn't need to fire off a bunch of shots in sequence and didn't have to make batteries last for any length of time, so I figured I could rely on ETTL to make up the difference. Oops! I was shooting manual, and after those first underexposed shots opened right up to 2.8 1/60 to let more ambient in, which is one of the reasons the later individual shots were an improvement.

Swartzy, thanks so much. I was actually invoking the Swartzy Ambient+Flash Recipe of iso400/f5.6/1/125 initially but I now realise there simply wasn't enough ambient for that to work... or the furthest subjects were just too far away to benefit.

Ceiling was a waste of time - the wood was so dark it was almost black. BUT... do I understand you're suggesting that with a foamie-thing (tm ltd) I could have flagged the flash from the folks in front, directed it forward/right to catch what I could of the right hand wall (directly to my right it was an arch so nothing to bounc there) and essentially lit them that way? (Note to self: even if you think it's going to be "only snapshots", take foamie thing and some kind of flash modifier with you )

Kidzmom, flash is a wonderful thing... once you learn to make it play nice....

Thanks again all - this is really helpful!

adbsgicom

I never take the foam off my flash. If I need it out of the way, I just peel it back. Plus, I've found that having it there in general groups (where some people don't know you) immediately makes it look like you have been asked to be taking pictures for some professional organization. I think you get a similar effect from having the lens hood on.

divamum

adbsgicom wrote:

I never take the foam off my flash. If I need it out of the way, I just peel it back. Plus, I've found that having it there in general groups (where some people don't know you) immediately makes it look like you have been asked to be taking pictures for some professional organization. I think you get a similar effect from having the lens hood on.

Ha! It's funny, using my xsi with a grip has the same effect and almost always generates the "Wow - that's a really nice camera" comments among non-camera people. Go figure!

Qarik

bounciung flash is great when you have the walls, ceilings, posing time to do it. But occasionally when you have to shoot in "real" time a fong sphere or some other bounce diffuser just can't be beat imo.

Nikonic1

Great thread. Learned a lot from Scott and Swartzy thumb

BradfordBenn

I am having the same struggles, and agree that the higher ISO seemed to help a lot with the flash off. I was at a biz conference last week and trying to get "table shots" of a few people, cranked up to ISO800 with the flash off and the results were much better. I tried going up to 1600 but I got too much noise.

I am now starting to understand the importance of fast glass.

rwells

Swartzy wrote:

To reiterate Scott's comment (in a different way)....it's all about balancing ambient with flash. The light fall off will typically give you the Kodak flash look.....jack up your ISO, allowing your meter to register light..even if 3 stops under, then think of where you would like the light to enter the frame. Better stated, think....."If I had an external light source, such as an umbrella with stand, where would I put it"?

This will help with the selection of lighting angle/reflection. Balancing ambient w/flash is the key.....making it look like flash was not used (if that's the desired look) takes some practice.

On the first shot, the idea should be, "How can I get the light to enter from the far CR corner coming in to the back of the table forward"? This exercise will afford you to get creative with your flash modifiers. A simple foamy, bouncing the light from the CR wall and ceiling (half way down the frame) would have illuminated the scene (with a higher ISO) and looked natural. Upping the FEC is generally required in such cases for distance light travel...also, keep in mind your aperture settings as this will control the distance of light exposure...why typically indoors we use a wider aperture in conjunction with higher ISO's.

As usual, Dave's right on target here.

Upping your ISO to 800 would have (essentially) doubled your light intake. Also, as both Scott & Dave mentioned, your fighting light fall-off. So, how best to handle that? Make your light source larger and further away from your subjects. This will make the relative distance of your subjects (front to back) more equal, therefore less light fall-off. How? Just like Dave stated above.

Also, to help combat the negative effects of light fall-off, it's imperative that you gel your flash to the ambient. In this case, set your camera to tungsten and gel with CTO.

If you'll notice in your images, the "white light" from your flash is a stark contrast to the orange tungsten of your ambient light. This also creates a visual delineation line that the eye easily picks-up. If your ambient and flash are the same color temp, the fall-off is still there, but it's not nearly as "in your face" noticeable.

BTW: Forget about "lighting formulas" ~ As you can see, they just won't apply correctly to many situations. Each shooting situation requires it's own set of variables to be worked out.

Keep reading and practicing the info from www.planetneil.com Do you have Neil's book yet? It's excellent!!!

Remember: Your trying to get the principles in your head, not a specific recipe.

Hope that helps...

divamum

Thanks Randy! Yes I have Neil's book and am starting to read it (real life has resurrected itself - this is good in many ways, but it has cut into my photography-obsessing time )