how to photo street celebration better next time?

may i ask how to take photo for street events like Christmas celebration?
here is the photo i took yesterday with my new toy, a canon 5d mark II, a 580 EX II, and a quantum turbo 2x2 flash battery pack.

is there any way to set my camera and do it better next time?

like what ISO should i use? what Shutter speed? what metering mode? should I compensate + or - exposure? should I compensate the flash output? what mode tv or av or M should i choose?

the metering result is very different as ppl wore different color of clothing, but I have no time to just for every color and set my flash, what to do?

and the lighting conditions were changing drastically as i walked along the street, set proper ISO to get correct ambient light is really hard.



I only knew I should photo in raw and thus I did.

i knew shooting from a lower angel would be better, but ppl would spray me if i changed to low angel, anyway i just could not. let us not discuss the angel here.


and I can rent a q-flash from shops next time, will it be helpful?


you can check the exif, i am not using english software, so the exif info in my computer is not in english.




Merry Christmas!!

some more, not really good, but i do try

I wouldn't rely on AF for situations like this. Your best bet is to get a lens like the 17-40L and set it to the infinity setting (which is around 4 feet IIRC). Then shoot around f/4, 1/30th, ISO 800-3200 (especially with the 5D2). All you'll have to worry about is pointing the camera in the right direction. This is also a perfect opportunity to have an assistant/sidekick who can keep a flash on a stand/monopod so the light looks a little more interesting than what you've got up there. If you've got your flash exposure set correctly for, say, 8-14 feet away (from the flash), you don't have to worry about your ambient light changing as much, because either way your foreground will get enough light and be crisp.

may i ask if a flash bracket will do help? it is hard to find ppl working for me on christmas

thanks

and 1/30 is it enough to freeze actions? i mean hand motion blur will be accepted, but if head also motion blurred, then these pics will not look good, basically these ppl are fighting with their spray, so they move very fast

i can always add motion blur by post processing, however very hard to remove whenever got

lynxlea wrote:


and 1/30 is it enough to freeze actions?




No, but the shutter isn't what's stopping action when you are using flash; it's the flash duration.

Hello lynxlea, I do not have a lot of experience shooting at night but I have noticed that whenever I do, scenes with a lot of background lights (eg. from buildings, decorations or reflections off water) generally produces much better looking pictures. If you look at the shots you have, those with a lot of background light generally looks better. In other words, try to position yourself so that you subjects are "back lit" by those lights and fire you flash to light up the subjects only.

I use a Canon EOS 40D and I generally crank up the ISO to 1600, you should be able to get much higher on your 5D MkII, giving your flash a much longer reach. Most of the time I use manual mode ISO 1600, shutter at 1/60 and aperture at f/2.8 for night scenes with background light. You'll have to experiment a little to find a combination that you like.

Good luck!


Bigbear.

thanks bigbearbear, u gave me a very good suggestion

another question is, exposure was vary by the color of ppl's clothing

how could i set the right exposure compensation of my flash?

and if ppl were back lit by the street light, what metering mode should i choose? the light meter can not link to focus point in 5d mark II yet

Shoot with your flash and your camera in manual. Exposure is the same regardless of the clothing color. Even if you overexpose or underexpose the people by up to 2/3-1 stop, you've got plenty of latitude (if you're shooting RAW) to bring it back.

thanks bacilonur, i did shoot in raw and manual mode refers to my original post,

but i found ettl and flash output will be affected by the clothing color

Hello lynxlea,

If you have left your flash in ETTL mode, the only time your subject's clothing colour can affect the exposure is if you are standing too close to them. Being a bit of a noob myself when it comes to night shoots, I frequently encounter this problem too. Step a little further away and you should be ok.

For night scenes with background light, I've found that leaving the Flash Compensation at neutral (0) works well for me. This is an example I recently shot at the port of Tel-Aviv, Israel:


Good luck!


Bigbear.

KL City Hall area? A bit far removed from Ethiopia isn't it?

Given all the light sources in the background any form of automatic metering will be fooled and problematical and the higher you set the ISO the more that will be the case. But if you monitor the over-exposure (i.e. clipping warning) on the camera while shooting and adjust the ISO and shutter speed as needed you should be able to get correctly exposed backgrounds.

The flash is going to be flat looking and fall off front to back unless you get it up off the camera a bracket. It would also help to find elevated vantage points to shoot from also. That helps several ways: 1) shadows fall downward not straight back into the faces of people behind; 2) it puts the heads closer together relative to the camera, and; 3) also puts the heads closer to flash so when they are exposed correctly the clothing, which is further away, will be darker.

A second flash behind the action would be ideal but not practical in that situation without an assistant.

Go to Strobist and practice the techniques given there for using speed lights and understand that when taking a flash photo you have two light sources to balance that is the ambient and the flash. learn to take single flash photos in both manual and ttl mode then add a second flash or a reflector and you will seethe type of lighting you are wanting.