Can't seem to get fast enough shutter speed with small aperture

Rupert67

Rupert67

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My particular bugbear when it comes to flash photography is the problem of getting a small enough aperture (e.g. f/8 or f/11) for decent dof, combined with a fast enough shutter speed (say 1/60 to 1/125) to hold the subject still.

Using my default ISO setting of 200 and an aperture priority setting of f/8, I find with my 5DIII + 580EXII the lens wants to stay open for far too long. If I conversely use a shutter priority setting of 1/60, the aperture will invariably open as far as the lens allows, in this case f/4.

The answer, I hear you say, is to set to manual mode, dial in the exposure parameters I require (f/8 and 1/60) and shoot. This is all very well of course until you see that the resultant image is really dark - something that can be rectified in PS of course, as can the colour temperature, but it's disappointing to check shots on the camera's LCD and find them so dark.

I'm due to take some portraits at the weekend - something I've done loads of times before - and in preparation I've been practising with my 580EX and 580EXII set as slaves mounted on tripods, with an ST-E2 on my hot shoe to trigger them. The hope is that, with twice the amount of light, I should be able to achieve better exposures.

With this set-up, basic though it is, can anyone offer any additional advice that might further help things along, please?
 
Yes it's simple.

When shooting with flash, you have 2 separate exposures to balance / calculate / consider.

Your problem is actually:
When the light is low so I want to use flash - the shutter speed is too low.

You can balance the flash in many ways, Manual is my favourite when using flash as keylight (the main light source) (But you can use the Auto or semi auto modes, so long as you limit the low shutter speed to something useful)

The problem you've had so far f8 1/60 ISO200 is that your ambient exposure is likely hugely underexposed (sometimes what we need) but your flash will give the 'photo in a cave' look, if you're not careful.

If you want to keep some ambient light in, then you need an exposure that'll do that - maybe up the ISO to 800 or 1600 and lower the aperture to f4 or f5.6

  • Why are you choosing f8?
  • Why the ST E2 (get some radio triggers)
Read up on flash position - most people set off on completely the wrong foot

Don't ever just think that 'adding flash = adding more light', it's a cop-out, all that 'artistic vision' goes out of the window when the amount rather than the quality and direction of light is our number one priority.

  • What modifiers are you using,
  • what's the flash position?
 
I have never done what you are doing but in my days of shooting interiors for an estate agent I worked on the following, albeit with one on camera flash bounced of the ceiling and walls.
Camera to manual, SS below sync speed, aperture to suit, ISO 400 ish-Flash to ETTL , chimp FEX if needed but it was usually +/- 0.5 stop
 
Phil V said:
Yes it's simple.

When shooting with flash, you have 2 separate exposures to balance / calculate / consider.

Your problem is actually:
When the light is low so I want to use flash - the shutter speed is too low.

You can balance the flash in many ways, Manual is my favourite when using flash as keylight (the main light source) (But you can use the Auto or semi auto modes, so long as you limit the low shutter speed to something useful)

The problem you've had so far f8 1/60 ISO200 is that your ambient exposure is likely hugely underexposed (sometimes what we need) but your flash will give the 'photo in a cave' look, if you're not careful.

If you want to keep some ambient light in, then you need an exposure that'll do that - maybe up the ISO to 800 or 1600 and lower the aperture to f4 or f5.6

  • Why are you choosing f8?
  • Why the ST E2 (get some radio triggers)
Read up on flash position - most people set off on completely the wrong foot

Don't ever just think that 'adding flash = adding more light', it's a cop-out, all that 'artistic vision' goes out of the window when the amount rather than the quality and direction of light is our number one priority.

  • What modifiers are you using,
  • what's the flash position?
Click to expand...

I appreciate your reply Phil .. thank you.

Saturday's pictures are likely to be blown up to feature outside the auditorium to my daughter's school production of Little Shop of Horrors. She's the vocal coach, assistant musical arranger and set designer amongst other things, in the large secondary school in NE London where she's been for the past 12 years. I've done the photography for their productions for a few years now and they've always been very pleased with the results, but each time I try to improve on my technique if I can. I don't want to use too high an ISO because of the visible grain effect. I always act a bit over-cautious with my 5DIII in that regard, but I guess up to ISO 3200 there's not much visible grain anyway! (For the production night shots, taken with my EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM from the back of the hall, I usually use ISO 6400 and aperture priority (f/5.6 - f/6.3), no flash of course. I find this produces a fast enough shutter speed to avoid movement blur.)

> I'm choosing f/8 for the portrait shots because I want to be certain of a decent dof from a distance of approximately 12-15 feet from my subject. If there is a group consisting of two or three close rows of kids, do you think f/5.6 would be small enough to achieve this?

> I'm using an ST-E2 because I've got one! I haven't the time to explore other ways of triggering my 580s.

> I'm sorry, I don't understand your question about modifiers.

> The flash position will be in a dark drama room at the school, but there is the promise of an unspecified number of lights, so I'm hoping that means 'lots'! I would normally bounce from the ceiling, but school rooms are notoriously difficult to achieve the right effect that way. For pretty much all the shots I anticipate taking I'll have the cast members in front of a dark backdrop, the flash slaves will be forming an equilateral triangle with them and I'll be pretty much dead centre and between 10 and 15 feet from them, depending on whether there's one person or a group of them.

Any additional advice will be greatly appreciated .. thank you!
 
Rupert67 said:
I appreciate your reply Phil .. thank you.

Saturday's pictures are likely to be blown up to feature outside the auditorium to my daughter's school production of Little Shop of Horrors. She's the vocal coach, assistant musical arranger and set designer amongst other things, in the large secondary school in NE London where she's been for the past 12 years. I've done the photography for their productions for a few years now and they've always been very pleased with the results, but each time I try to improve on my technique if I can. I don't want to use too high an ISO because of the visible grain effect. I always act a bit over-cautious with my 5DIII in that regard, but I guess up to ISO 3200 there's not much visible grain anyway! !
Click to expand...
So you've got plenty of ISO headroom, sorted, try 400 or 800 to make the most of the flash power, which will help to lift the ambient (if that is what you want) but now you know you can knock the ISO down to lower the ambient.
Rupert67 said:
> I'm choosing f/8 for the portrait shots because I want to be certain of a decent dof from a distance of approximately 12-15 feet from my subject. If there is a group consisting of two or three close rows of kids, do you think f/5.6 would be small enough to achieve this?
Click to expand...

As you know DoF is a function of subject distance focal length and aperture, I use f8 for huge wedding groups, for groups of heads you really shouldn't need smaller than f5.6 but check yourself, it's a personal judgement thing, there's no right or wrong.

Rupert67 said:
> I'm using an ST-E2 because I've got one! I haven't the time to explore other ways of triggering my 580s.
Click to expand...

You'll appreciate that the STE2 requires line of sight, and that it can get unreliable, think about some Yongnuo YN622s and a TX, much more useful.


Rupert67 said:
> I'm sorry, I don't understand your question about modifiers.

> The flash position will be in a dark drama room at the school, but there is the promise of an unspecified number of lights, so I'm hoping that means 'lots'! I would normally bounce from the ceiling, but school rooms are notoriously difficult to achieve the right effect that way. For pretty much all the shots I anticipate taking I'll have the cast members in front of a dark backdrop, the flash slaves will be forming an equilateral triangle with them and I'll be pretty much dead centre and between 10 and 15 feet from them, depending on whether there's one person or a group of them.
Click to expand...

Modifiers are whatever you're using to change the size and shape of the light source; umbrella, softbox, beauty dish, reflector, bounce surface.

If you're used to just bouncing off a ceiling, this might be a bit of a shock but a random large surface isn't really making a decision about your lighting, it's a bit of a cop out.

The cheap solution is a simple umbrella, whether reflective or shoot thru, but you'll also need a bracket to mount that and your flashgun.

But a better option is a softbox.

Your suggested flash pattern to be honest is total garbage.

Rules of lighting:

There's one sun and it's above us, we're used to seeing faces lit from above, any other shadow pattern can look anything from slightly odd to completely unnatural.

The larger and closer a light source, the softer the shadows - we don't always want soft light but it's good to know cause and effect.

Light bounces off a surface at the same angle it hits it, like a snooker ball off a cushion.
 
Cheers Phil and thanks again for the practical tips.
 
Some great advice as always from Phil. Being s 5D3 user also, after reading your first post my first thought was, why not bump up the ISO, adjusting to 1600 would give an extra 3 stops to use on either shutter or aperture. As Phil has already said, if you want to balance the ambient with the flash, you need to get the ambient set first and then add your flash to illuminate or freeze the subject.

If you're wanting to use the flash as the main light, ideally you want to get your flash off camera. If you have 2 flashes then you need to decide how you want to illuminate the subject and how you want the image to look. This is where creativity comes in to play, which is a personal and subjective thing, the basic setup is 1 up high and slightly to your side (after all the sun is always high in the sky), your second you want to use as a fill light to lift the shadows (I once heard that flash photography is as much about creating shadows as it is adding light, after all its the shadows that highlight shape and add the 3rd dimension), this light should be set a lower power than the first.

Just a thought but if they have said you can use their lighting, how portable/movable are they. Can you use these as they are basically continuous lights, it may be easier and quicker to position everything, that way you don't have to worry about balancing the flash at all.

Have a read of the Strobist 101, they have some great tips.
http://strobist.blogspot.co.uk/2006/03/on-assignment.html
 
Just to add, have you an idea of the look you want to create, if you did and had an example of someone else's work that you were trying to emulate (google is your friend), maybe the more learned regulars would be able to advise on light positioning. Feel free to share some of your own too, so that can see you style. For example are you trying to create something like this

http://img2.rnkr-static.com/list_img_v2/14906/894906/C520/the-best-actors-working-today-u2.jpg

or

http://img2.rnkr-static.com/list_im...-film-actors-and-actresses-of-all-time-u2.jpg
 
Thanks for your two posts Chris. On the day I'll have to do the best I can with what they provide. Only the last time was there any additional lighting (with a brolly which was triggered by my own flash) and that certainly helped! Otherwise it's all handheld with bounce flash and the catch light device extended.

I took these two Grease publicity portraits (2014) with camera mounted flash, bounced. Manual, ISO 200, either f/5.6 or f/6.3 and 1/80s ..

AX2A0860_edited-1.jpg AX2A0902_edited-1.jpg

These three from the Wizard of Oz (2015) were assisted by a studio light/brolly combo. Aperture priority this time, ISO 200, f/7.1 (for some reason!), and between 1/10s and 1/15s (which is a bit slow for handheld, I know!) ..

AX2A2665_edited-1.jpg AX2A2694_edited-1.jpg AX2A2701_edited-1.jpg
 
Ok Rupert, I dont know if you wanted critique on these or not, so feel free to ignore or ask me to remove. However from a subject lighting view to me these look OK, my only issue is with the backgrounds. The faces blend in a little too much, if it was me I would try and create a bit more space between the subject and the background and use a single light in a brolly as the key light dependant on the ambient a reflector (cheap 5 in 1) if you have one could be used to bounce light to fill in the opposite side. What you should see is that the background is now rather underexposed. I would then place my second flash on the floor behind the person aimed at the background to create a pool of light behind the head and shoulders (think of a halo)
 
ChrisHeathcote said:
Ok Rupert, I dont know if you wanted critique on these or not, so feel free to ignore or ask me to remove. However from a subject lighting view to me these look OK, my only issue is with the backgrounds. The faces blend in a little too much, if it was me I would try and create a bit more space between the subject and the background and use a single light in a brolly as the key light dependant on the ambient a reflector (cheap 5 in 1) if you have one could be used to bounce light to fill in the opposite side. What you should see is that the background is now rather underexposed. I would then place my second flash on the floor behind the person aimed at the background to create a pool of light behind the head and shoulders (think of a halo)
Click to expand...

Thanks Chris, no critique required! I only popped these on here as an example of what I've done for them in the past .. they always seem delighted, which is the main thing. Time constraints are always an issue .. this is not a relaxed studio situation; the kids have to rush round from the dress rehearsal, have their picture taken, then rush back again. It's a manic day and it's all happening again this Saturday!

Your comments are valid of course, I like the backlight halo effect of which you speak but, as you can appreciate, there's no time just now to experiment.
 
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