First event shoot!

arrgh406

This past Friday, I did my first event shoot, the pre-party for my sisters formal.

Like I said, this was my first event, so I need some C&C. Any and all comments welcome!

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5.

System

#1 either a tighter crop to include only the two girls in front or a looser crop to include the guy who's head you cut off.

#4 tighter crop to get rid of the bust background stuff. Bounce your flash to help get rid of the giant shadows.

#5 Great concept...but those giant shadows are there again.

#3,4,5 the white dress is washed out (no detail).

Jheyerck

I like #2 the best. I agree with the big shadows in the last few. The first one, their bodies look "cut off" And the one of them all side by side, where you have everyone in view, it looks like the focus is on their legs to me, like you were standing or kneeling lower than them. I think you did good for your first event though!!

adbsgicom

I agree w/ the cropping, but I'm not seeing the white dress as totally blown out. #3 has some clipping but not on all channels and most of the dress has some detail left. #5 has no clipping on the dress at all. I'm basing my assessment on both visual on my monitor as well as pulling the images up in PS and looking at the levels.

Definitely bounce your flash, the lighting will end up much better. My guess is that the ceiling colors are a nice white. Given how much of your light is from the flash, even the color you pick up from the walls can be corrected if you shoot in RAW (or set a CWB -- I think it's easier to shoot RAW and get the color right in post).

The_Fat_Zebra

In picture 1 the guy's head is chopped off, different crop would work better? I also like 2 the best, but you should practice bouncing the flash and fine-tuning the ratio between flash and ambient.

arrgh406

Thanks for all the help guys! So far I would say that I need to work on bouncing the flash and working with ambient light. Can someone direct me to a resource that may help with this?

Mountainwoman

www.strobist.blogspot.com

Mountainwoman

Also, forgot this one:

http://neilvn.com/tangents/flash-photography-techniques/

Qarik

the direct flash kills every shot for me. Learn to bounce the flash and get a diffuser.

Swartzy

More ambient w/bounced flash = beautifully lit photographs. Let ISO 1600 be your friend in dark venues.....minimum ISO 800 I see would work well on some of these.