best way to focus in dark situations???

[Chrisly2009]

Hi guys

I've got a birthday party to shoot tomorrow in a hall.

I'm bringing a 580ex flash on a stand and shooting wirelessly to one side of the subjects from my canon 20d.
I really need to ask how people get crisp shots when the lighting from the room/hall isn't that great.

I have a 1.8 50mm lens which helps but i've never shot manual focus before and I was wondering if I am missing out because of that.

I was confronted with this situation yesterday too when I went to a photo shoot that just happened to be in a dark room. My camera keep zooming in and out to find a focus point so i was missing vital expressions etc.

any advice on getting nice sharp images in dark situations please???

 

[aethelstan927]

I'm guessing the af assist on the 580 doesn't work off camera?
Other than that get used to practising manual I bought some old pentax primes and forced my self to manual focus for months at a time
Good luck hope it goes well

 

[Chris Primadona]

You could try using the flash mounted on the camera bounced to use the inbuilt focus assist (mine will work in almost total darkness!).