I am doing a luncheon event where there will be shots of people mingling, shhots of speakers and shots of people at tables. I have a couple of questions regarding lighting. (I am a newbie at this).
Should I wude a flash bracket and shoot right at the folks or should I try a hood over my 580 EX II and bounce the flash at them?
If you use a flash bracket and shoot right at them will it wash tem out like a flash on the hot shoe?
What priority do you shoot in "P" "AV" or "TV"? What settings. I realize that the lighting of the area will make a difference I was wanting to get some general advice.
stklaw wrote:
I am doing a luncheon event where there will be shots of people mingling, shhots of speakers and shots of people at tables. I have a couple of questions regarding lighting. (I am a newbie at this).
Should I wude a flash bracket and shoot right at the folks or should I try a hood over my 580 EX II and bounce the flash at them?
If you use a flash bracket and shoot right at them will it wash tem out like a flash on the hot shoe?
What priority do you shoot in "P" "AV" or "TV"? What settings. I realize that the lighting of the area will make a difference I was wanting to get some general advice.
Brackets help get rid of red eye, and I use mine to help me get the flash "off" the camera as much as possible.
I shoot all events in full manual control. On my 580EX, my default settings are: +2 exposure compensation power (controlled on camera), manual settings, 1/125th, F5.0-Whatever I need.
I bounce using a Joe Demb Flit It (google it, and tell Joe I sent ya). The rest is history.
I shoot all events in full manual control. On my 580EX, my default settings are: +2 exposure compensation power (controlled on camera), manual settings, 1/125th, F5.0-Whatever I need.
As I understand from reading the literature (yes I have been reading a lot to try to get this right) when in M mode the internal flash metering tells you how much flash you need and then delivers it. Why would you increase what the camera says you need by 2 stops. Theoretically shouldn't it work perfect at FEC 0?
OK, while I was waiting for a response I did some very unscientific tests. What I did not talk about is how I was diffusing the light. My testing shows that if you set the metering mode to center weighted average and use a softbox on the flash and shoot it right at the subject that you really do need +1 or +2 FEC. However, if you use a LumiQuest pocket bouncer you can leave the FEC at 0 and get perfect results. By the way the softbox that I was using was the LumiQuest softbox. The light was much harsher with the softbox.
Soooo, my conclusion is to go with the pocket bouncer and set it on M and center weighted average with the FEC set to 0, the shutter at 1/80th and the aperature at 5.6 or 4. This way if I am taking 3 people standing together, hopefully it will meter them correctly with the flash being diffused by the bouncer.
By the way, I have decided tha the Lumiquest softbox is worthless. You just can't get a non harsh picture when you are shooting right at your subject with a hot shoe flash (even with a flash bracket which I just got today and may not even use)
