Flash off cam and Shutter Speed

Antonio Correia

These photos demonstrate the influence of the shutter speed on the detail in shadows, using off camera flash.
With constant aperture, as the speed goes smaller the detail in the shadow appears.
Look at the window in the background and to the shadows and you will see the differences.

Kind of preparing Christmas pictures.
I invite you to try and show the results.
JPG pictures straight from RAW..

LINKS - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6

LiquidAir

Nice.

The way I set up is to set the camera to manual and take test shots of the room with the flash shut off, chimping until I get what I want. Then I meter the flash with ETTL2 (often triggered by the ST-E2) and use FEC to tune my subject exposure. When shooting Christmas pictures I usually choose an ambient exposure which preserves color in the lights and typically leaves the rest of the background pretty dark. With the ambient levels so low, I don't bother gelling the flash to match the lights and instead use a flash WB and let the background turn a warm brown.

Here is a shot from last Christmas (on camera flash bounced of the ceiling).

Antonio Correia

Thank you Kenn.
This is a nice picture of last Christmas !

I was - and still am - reading previous posts here.

Curious that, reading again some time later the same thread, I get a different and better notion of what we are talking about.

I go to Strobist and Lighting Mods daily !

Have a nice week end !

pathfinder

LiquidAir wrote:

Nice.

The way I set up is to set the camera to manual and take test shots of the room with the flash shut off, chimping until I get what I want. Then I meter the flash with ETTL2 (often triggered by the ST-E2) and use FEC to tune my subject exposure. When shooting Christmas pictures I usually choose an ambient exposure which preserves color in the lights and typically leaves the rest of the background pretty dark. With the ambient levels so low, I don't bother gelling the flash to match the lights and instead use a flash WB and let the background turn a warm brown.

Here is a shot from last Christmas (on camera flash bounced of the ceiling).

My candids are shot similar to LAirs, but I take the 580ex off the camera and stick it in the corner of a room and bounce the light off the ceiling, along with a foamie diffuser to throw some light forward into the room. .. By shooting in manual you can set your basic exposure to underexpose the background about 1 stop, and let the flash expose the foreground properly.

You can even do this out of doors with a 580ex and an ST-E2 also, as for example here.... This was shot at 2:30 in the middle of a sunny afternoon.



You want a darker background shorten the shutter speed, brighter background, lengthen the shutter speed to allow more ambient light to be collected.

LiquidAir

On flash placement, I use three strategies depending on the space.

If the ceiling is low and white (like my sample shot) I often leave the flash on camera and bounce. Keeping the flash close to the subject means less spill in the rest of the room which gives me better background separation.

If I have nice big white wall to work with, I'll place the flash where it lights as much of the wall as I can with soft, room filling light. The side light can be very nice, but it restricts my shooting angles.

If the room is complicated, I often carry the flash in my left hand and pick a new flash position for each shot. Its awkward and tricky, but in some rooms it is the only answer for getting good light for a wide variety of candids.


As for metering, in practice, I'll rarely drop the shutter speed below 1/50 second. So, while dragging the shutter is the common theory, it only gives you around 2 stops of practical control. However, if you open the aperture or bump the ISO the camera will automatically drop the flash power for you if you are using ETTL2 metering. The net effect is that as long as you are using ETTL2 for the flash and manual for the ambinent, you can control the background exposure just as easily with the aperture and ISO as you do with the shutter speed. When I am shooting indoors with a flash, my first guess camera settings are ISO 800, 1/100s, f/4 and I'll tweak from there to get the ambient where I want it.

Antonio Correia

John and Kenn I would like to thank you for your wise words.
I took sometime to post an answer because I wanted to read slowly and absorbing ...:D

I often shoot like Kenn does: I hold the flash with my left hand and shoot with the right one.
The camera and the lens are heavy to hold sometimes and for a long time.
I drop the flash in the pocket of the trousers while moving around.

I need to make more experiments/tests.


John, How's your 40 D compare to the 5 D ?