It's 5:45AM and I am standing on South Beach in Miami. I am going to be photographing a couple for engagement pictures! At this point the sun is still below the horizon, and there is some natural light avail, but not enough for my subjects.
I am shooting facing the water with them in front. I need to use fill flash so my subjects come out, and I want the background properly exposed.
Would this be the "right" way to go about it:
Shooting manual mode, lets say I select 5.6 for a starting point, and I expose for the horizon / ocean. I dial in enough ISO so that I have a stable hand held shutter speed of at least 1/60. Using the 430EX on camera, I then turn it on, and fire with ETTL, and review the results. IF they come out under exposed then add more flash power + ect..
The easiest thing to do would be to shoot in Av mode and set your ISO high enough to get a decent shutter speed. Then your on camera flash will provide the fill necessary.
That being said. You're still not going to get great shots with the on camera flash. If you have the capability to shoot with another flash off to the side or through an umbrella you'll have much better pictures.
Eric - Yeah this is the other thought I had too. This would be more simple. Lock in 5.6 for starters, and dial up the ISO to get something 1/60 or better, then just turn on the 430EX and shot ETTL?
Yeah, I am fresh out of "warm gel" .. lost it last week, and new one is not coming in time... all well.. it's hard to find them for the 430ex.. any thoughts on-line?
I guess I will have to boost the temp in post. Arrrggg : )
Look in the Rosco Cinegel catalog for other warm gels like the straws (less red than CTO) and other artistic gels like Cinegel #3152: Urban Vapor, that gives the look of Mercury Vapor Lamps without the green.
In life we're all under-prepared, it makes things fun.
If you have an assistant and a reflector of the softgold variety, have him/her hold it up to your left facing the models, and shoot your flash into it. You'll have to adjust the flash compensation a bit, but you'll get a good shot.
However, you'll probably want to use a tripod anyway, just to get into the habit, it's good for making the background crisp. It also gives good edge between the models and the BG..
TJ - Your right, I am taking on jobs so that I can get better... all friends or free work for now.. I am trying to get used to lighting, and have been reading a lot on strobist, and Chuck.... ect.. There is only so many times I can shoot the house cat or girlfriend before I need something "real".
But, I still have questions, and like to confirm my understanding with people like you whom are way past my point. Thanks for the luck... I WILL need it! I saw your site, nice. Nice looking studio too. <sigh> someday.....
There are several technical and perceptual considerations.
Perceptually our eyes adapt in person to the color temp of the ambient light so in just about any light our brains will look at face and think the skin tone is the range of normal.
In a situation like sunrise sunset the camera doesn't adapt, it just captures what is there. To retain the warm ambience of the sunrise light you'd need to set WB to "daylight" but if you shoot the face in that same ambient light it may appear too warm and unnatural in the photo because the eye doesn't adapt to the photo perceptually the same way it does in person. When flash with WB set to "daylight" the face will be rendered normally in the technical sense of a gray card held near the face being neutral, but when seen against the context of the warmly rendered sky it will seem too cool perceptually in the photo. The solution to that dilemma is splitting the difference. Base the overall WB on the daylight preset to preserve the "as seen" ambience of the background but also warm up the color of the flash somewhat to eliminate the sterile "too cool" look of the flash. The tricky part is knowing how much to warm the flash. That will in term depend on how much flash is needed in addition to the warm ambient light bouncing from the sky. Something in the range of 1/4 CTO would probably put you in the right perceptual zip code.
But since there's really no penalty in that situation for making the sky look warmer than it actually was you could just shoot with unfiltered flash in RAW for neutral WB and then adjust by eye in Adobe Camera RAW with the color temp / tint sliders. Shoot the subjects holding a gray card as a reference. When you get the first shot color balance of the skin tone balanced nicely perceptually just copy the WB setting to the other files.
Another option to control the outcome predictably in the capture phase would be to set custom WB in the camera off a "warm" card rather than a neutral one. A warm card is actually more blue than neutral, which skews the CB to the warm side. They are more commonly used for video rather than stills. You can find "warm" cards at B&H or just experiment and find a bluish gray piece of paper or fabric to use.
Whichever method you pick just be aware you are dealing with a fluid situation. As the sun rises or sets the light level and color temp is constantly changing. So if the session lasts 30 min. you might have vastly different conditions at the end than in the beginning.
With regard to exposure, pointing the camera into the ocean where the sun is rising below the horizon will fool the meter. Av mode should compensate for any changes once you get the EC dialed in, but in Av mode the ambient light also affects the flash metering and FEC needed. You will need to monitor exposure frequently and carefully. Its a situation where my white towel / OEW trick will be quite useful.
As a check for optimal exposure just have the subject hold a white terry towel next to their face. Then look at the image of the towel in the playback with the Over Exposure Warning (OEW engaged). For fill flash situations in Av you first need to adjust EC to the level where the parts of the towel backlit with the ambient are not blown. That typically requires quite a bit of minus EC and will make the foreground quite dark. But its necessary for the ETTL flash metering to work correctly. Once you get the ambient on the towel below clipping, turn on the flash in ETTL set to FEC = 0, take a shot then adjust FEC based on the playback for best balance perceptionally. Click the WWW button and look in the Canon section for the High Speed Flash tutorial which illustrates this workflow and the results you can expect.
What is the difference between using the +/- power in ETTL mode on the flash instead of using FEC in the camera?
For example, if I use flash in ETTL mode, and I see that I need more power... I just + 1/4 , 1/2 , +1, +2 , +3 as needed..
If I leave the flash to ETTL, and see I need "more power" and leave the flash alone, instead increase the FEC + ect.. this would be less ware on the flash, and faster recycle times? How does this work?
Or you could just use an incident light/flash meter and get it right on the first shot. Incident meters are not fooled by the background. No FEC BS to deal with.
Using reflectors is a very good way to work with the changing color temperature of dawn and dusk.
Still trying to wrap my head around this (even after reading your test on your site, very nice!).. so.. I'm on the beach and I am in AV mode, metering the background (ocean / horizon) I have the the cam set to 2.8 (lets say).. and I adjust the ISO to give me enough shutter to hand hold (something about 1/60).. I am going to use the 430EX on camera for fill in ETTL mode. Is this a situation where I would need to use the AE-Lock? because as soon as I move my camera to my subjects after metering the background AV mode is going to change.. right? (I always have just used "M" mode in the past)..
So, I meter in AV mode for the "sky / background" Lock in the expose with AE lock, then recompose on the subject with fill flash set to ETTL.
From this point I would just then adjust background exposure using the EC +/- .. and I would adjust the flash amount using the +/- on the flash (or FEC in camera)?
Again, I am just wanting to check my understanding here...
sharp_glass wrote:
What is the difference between using the +/- power in ETTL mode on the flash instead of using FEC in the camera?
They do the same thing, but the control on the flash takes precedence over the one set on the camera. Once the flash is set on anything other than 0 it takes over. When the flash is set back to FEC=0 whatever was set on the camera kicks back in. That can get confusing so use one or the other. I prefer using the flash because its easier to see what the setting is.
FEC only works if the flash has a reserve of power left. The problem in ETTL mode is a lack of feedback, apart from recycle time, what % of full power is being used.
Say for example your ETTL exposure caused the flash to fire at 50% of capacity at FEC=0. In that case raising FEC to +1 will increase output to 100%. Increasing FEC beyond +1 will have no additional effect because FEC+1 in that situation = Full Power. To get more exposure you'd need to either open the aperture or raise ISO speed.
Still trying to wrap my head around this (even after reading your test on your site, very nice!).. so.. I'm on the beach and I am in AV mode, metering the background (ocean / horizon) I have the the cam set to 2.8 (lets say).. and I adjust the ISO to give me enough shutter to hand hold (something about 1/60).. I am going to use the 430EX on camera for fill in ETTL mode. Is this a situation where I would need to use the AE-Lock? because as soon as I move my camera to my subjects after metering the background AV mode is going to change.. right? (I always have just used "M" mode in the past).. ...Show more →
What you need to do is move AF lock the the * button. Focus with * then recompose before half-pressing shutter, which locks AE, then push fully which fires the pre-flash, meters and compares ambient and flash, then takes the photo.
From this point I would just then adjust background exposure using the EC +/- .. and I would adjust the flash amount using the +/- on the flash (or FEC in camera)?
Yes. In Av mode you control ambient via EC, which will change the shutter speed, and separately control the foreground with FEC.
If you are more comfortable using M then use it instead for ambient control, but be aware the ambient at that time of day is a moving target. The flash control part remains the same in M mode (via FEC), but the ambient exposure isn't factored into the flash calculation as it is in Av mode.
Just experiment at dawn or dusk and you'll quickly get the hang of it.
.. lost it last week, and new one is not coming in time... all well.. it's hard to find them for the 430ex.. any thoughts on-line?