Quote:
Originally Posted by mattyande
The couple HDR shots are all done with a tripod here... I've done a couple hand held using bracketing on my camera and they turned out okay. I wouldn't make 24" posters of them, but they look nice in general.
Yeah, I couldn't bounce here... You can see the ceilings I had to work with, and they were both elevated and dark colored... It became apparent to me during this event that I still have no idea what I'm doing with flash...
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I think flash is a good tool once you learn how to use it (not saying I am an expert by any means). Its really cool because your camera shutter speed controls the ambient light, while your flash exposes your subject--two exposures with one click
A couple things I picked up on it:
-use your pop up as commander if you can (it wont effect the exposure at all, just be sure you are far enough away from subject). Not all camera models are capable of this. Otherwise to shoot off the hotshoe you would have to get a cable.
-get the SB off the hot shoe. Hold it in your left hand and angle toward the subject. Then it wont be straight on towards your subject. You can cross your arms with flash in left and camera in right to give more support to the camera if you dont have a tripod. Just make sure the flash sensor sees the commander flash. If you must shoot with it on the hotshoe, point it in basically any direction other than your subject and see what happens. Sometimes all you need is a little fill light.
-The candids you took actually turned out ok i think. They had a little too much specular highlights, but you got the background exposure well. To help with the highlights on your subject, definitely use the pop on diffuser. You might also consider getting a softbox. You can even buy small ones (like 1x1 that would really help) if you dont want to carry around lightstands etc.
-If you see that your subject is too bright turn down the EV on the flash to balance it a little. Then check the background and adjust the camera exposure if needed to brighten/darken.
I think once you got the first set of people down with the right settings the others would be much faster.
Flash is definitely something that I want to learn more about for portraits, etc.