new flash user, in a restaurant

Elaine

I tried out my flash (for the second time) with A Better Bounce Card (for the first time) in a restaurant setting last night. My friend's husband arranged a little surprise party for her and I asked if I could bring my camera. (I forget how big the 40D with flash with attached bounce card can look to folks who usually carry little p&s cams! My system opened up some conversations, for sure!) Anyway, I was pleased with the lighting I was able to achieve, but now I need to work on setting a custom WB in situations like this. I'm worried my eyes are compensating for some color casts in this shot. There is so much color, mostly red and yellow...are the skin tones too much as well?

jeffreaux2

Elaine, I think the phot looks great. Very nice job balancing the flash and ambient light!! I am not on a calibrated monitor at the moment, but do notice that the BG ambient light has a yellow cast(typical), but the forground is less yellow and maybe a tad cool( just judging from the magenta or red i see). I think the camera did a pretty decent job of handling the wb. The only way to even everything out is to gel the flash so that the color it outputs would match the available light in color temperature. There are different gels for different lighting types....including sunlight....which I am still experimenting with. I have found it to make a helpful difference that is worth the effort when using fill flash outdoors in the shade. I haven't purchased any gels yet. I ordered a sample book from rosco and from lee to cut up and play with so that I can decide which ones I need to carry. I have not tried to use gels indoors, but some of the folks here do.....and I bet they chime in for ya!!!

Scott_Quier

Elaine,

Here's a trick for when you don't have gray card with you. In post, most gentleman's white collar really are white. So are most T-shirts. If you use his t-shirt collar that is sticking out, you should be good to go. The white part of the candles should get your really close as well.

Elaine

Scott_Quier wrote:

Elaine,

Here's a trick for when you don't have gray card with you. In post, most gentleman's white collar really are white. So are most T-shirts. If you use his t-shirt collar that is sticking out, you should be good to go. The white part of the candles should get your really close as well.

Thanks, Scott! I've actually tried both of those spots (T-shirt and candles) numerous times with the "remove color cast" dropper. I've also used the white part of the logo on his shirt. The candles or cake have proven to be the best, as far as I can tell, but even then, it's looked like I've needed to tweak a bit with some filters. So, I'm guessing you're agreeing that the skin tones still aren't quite right?

Elaine

jeffreaux2 wrote:

Elaine, I think the phot looks great. Very nice job balancing the flash and ambient light!! I am not on a calibrated monitor at the moment, but do notice that the BG ambient light has a yellow cast(typical), but the forground is less yellow and maybe a tad cool( just judging from the magenta or red i see). I think the camera did a pretty decent job of handling the wb. The only way to even everything out is to gel the flash so that the color it outputs would match the available light in color temperature. There are different gels for different lighting types....including sunlight....which I am still experimenting with. I have found it to make a helpful difference that is worth the effort when using fill flash outdoors in the shade. I haven't purchased any gels yet. I ordered a sample book from rosco and from lee to cut up and play with so that I can decide which ones I need to carry. I have not tried to use gels indoors, but some of the folks here do.....and I bet they chime in for ya!!!

Thanks, Jeff! Oh boy...have I got a lot to learn about flash! One step at a time, I guess. I was just happy to not have racoon eyes here!

jeffreaux2

Elaine wrote:

Thanks, Jeff! Oh boy...have I got a lot to learn about flash! One step at a time, I guess. I was just happy to not have racoon eyes here!

Well, I'll make a deal with you. Let's split up and I will figure out outdoor gels. You figure out the indoor gels. In a few months we can exchange info and both be experts inside and out.....whaddaya say!!!

In all honesty, we all have a lot to learn. I think that is what keeps photography so interesting to me. There will always be challenges!!!

photogmomma

Wonderful job!

Here's what I do: I carry a WhiBal and when I remember to use it (about 50% of the time), it works great.

But you have to remember - there is NO way to ever get your photo to have perfect white balance if you aren't gelling your flash - and even then it's not perfect. You have one color of light coming from your flash and another coming from the ambient light - and if there's a window with sunlight or a different kind of light, you have a 3rd one. You just have to accept it and go with it. Personally, I like the feel of different lighting sources most of the time and don't let them stress me as much as they used to.

In the case of your photo, she's lit nicely by the flash, he's not so much and has more ambient - that's probably what's messing wtih your eyes. That can be caused by your BBC. I like to use Stofens in this case as you get more light and less dropoff and you don't have to worry about making sure your BBC is pointed correctly.

If you want to try gelling your flash, what you'll do is buy a gel (I have one of Gary Phong's diffusers with a gel - although I'd look at a stofen as they're easier to use and almost as effective - just make sure you buy the right one for your flash and the right color). The gels come in different colors based on the light. Tungsten is pretty much the only one I use - that's the normal lightbulb light you see.... Put it on your flash, set your camera's white balance to Tungsten and shoot away. While it may not be perfect, it will get you MUCH closer than you see here. (It's debateable if it's better or not.)

OR! You can do the final thing I do.... Go with B&W most of the time. LMAO! Seriously, I actually do use the tungsten setting on my WB for my camera as I find Canon's is pretty close. But because I end up with a bit more grain than I like in color (I set a pretty high ISO so I get a lot of ambient light), I end up going B&W or more funky with my processing in situations like this. You'll never get perfect photos and sometimes they're boring so I think spicing 'em up at processing time is a good excuse to have a little more fun.

Hope some of that helped me! (I was CLUELESS about gelling until the last few months. !)

Great shot in any way you look at it, though!

Elaine

jeffreaux2 wrote:

Well, I'll make a deal with you. Let's split up and I will figure out outdoor gels. You figure out the indoor gels. In a few months we can exchange info and both be experts inside and out.....whaddaya say!!!

In all honesty, we all have a lot to learn. I think that is what keeps photography so interesting to me. There will always be challenges!!!

If only it were that easy! But I agree with you...if we already knew exactly how to do everything, it wouldn't be as much of a satisfying journey, now would it?

Elaine

photogmomma wrote:

Wonderful job!
...
Great shot in any way you look at it, though!

Thanks a bunch, Andi! Yes, I think I was certainly dealing with light fall-off here, as the ceiling was rather high, vaulted at an angle, and brown! And I was using the shorter (3 3/4" tall) BBC. As I said before, I was just thrilled to not have racoon eyes or massive flashy shadows! I actually don't mind the surrounding light being a different color so much, in this setting. I just want to make sure that she looks good!

Thanks for the tips on WB, diffusers and gels. I will certainly be researching this stuff in the coming weeks.

Thanks for looking and sharing your own experiences!

Tee Why

Try a Sto fen diffuser, it's much more compact and as another mentioned may give you less light falling off.

As was mentioned, if you use Custom WB with the ambient light and then use a flash, the background exposed by the ambient light will look right but your subjects colors will generally be very blue as the color temp will be off b/c of the flash.

jeffreaux2

Tee Why wrote:

Try a Sto fen diffuser, it's much more compact and as another mentioned may give you less light falling off.

As was mentioned, if you use Custom WB with the ambient light and then use a flash, the background exposed by the ambient light will look right but your subjects colors will generally be very blue as the color temp will be off b/c of the flash.

Actually......
If used in ETTL mode, on auto white balance, the canon system is supposed to allow for the temperature of the flash and ambient light. It does a pretty good job as evident in the photo, but.....alas it is not perfect. In any other mode...flash, daylight, etc.....the camera does not average the WB for both flash and ambient.

I have had good luck outdoors using a 1/2 CTO gel and daylight WB for photos that I use fill flash on. They still look a bit odd out of camera, but the Temp for forground and BG are much closer than without the gel. Once I get WB set in RAW editor they look great.

Elaine

jeffreaux2 wrote:

Actually......
If used in ETTL mode, on auto white balance, the canon system is supposed to allow for the temperature of the flash and ambient light. It does a pretty good job as evident in the photo, but.....alas it is not perfect. In any other mode...flash, daylight, etc.....the camera does not average the WB for both flash and ambient.

I have had good luck outdoors using a 1/2 CTO gel and daylight WB for photos that I use fill flash on. They still look a bit odd out of camera, but the Temp for forground and BG are much closer than without the gel. Once I get WB set in RAW editor they look great.

This sounds like what Andi suggested for indoors (and what I saw Gary Fong suggest on one of his little videos a few days ago)...set WB for tungsten and gel your flash to match...so that when you adjust in RAW, it will affect both the flash and ambient lights about the same because they will be close to the same color already. Does that sound correct?

jeffreaux2

Elaine wrote:

This sounds like what Andi suggested for indoors (and what I saw Gary Fong suggest on one of his little videos a few days ago)...set WB for tungsten and gel your flash to match...so that when you adjust in RAW, it will affect both the flash and ambient lights about the same because they will be close to the same color already. Does that sound correct?

In a nutshell.....YES

seastack

And a really low-tech old trick is to "gel" your flash with a band-aid. This also works quite well to warm things up a bit with fill flash in other situations.