Beginner Flash exposure, am I along the right line of thought?

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northerndarkness

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Hi, I come from a music concert photography point of view so i don't really have much experience with flash, but i'd like to be able to take some pics at my daughters birthday disco in december so I picked up 2x canon 600ex rt's and a wireless transmitter.

I was just wondering (mostly from wedding photographers I would have thought), what your process is for setting up for a disco?

Am I right in thinking the best way of doing it is to use manual flash on stands,Camera in manual exposure mode, meter for correct ambient only exposure at a high ISO for chosen aperture that allows a good shutter speed, then bring the ISO down to underexpose the image by 2 or 3 stops and add flash from there?, I thought this because bringing the exposure down using the ISO will introduce less noise and my shutter speed will remain high enough to not blur in any great way.

So for example not real values of any situation... say i set my camera for f2.8 at 1/100, and my ambient only reading was correctly exposed at 6400 iso, I would then drop the iso to maybe 1600 and add flash from there to correctly expose the subject, and maintain some of the ambient light?

...Or am I just way off the mark here?
 
northerndarkness said:
Hi, I come from a music concert photography point of view so i don't really have much experience with flash, but i'd like to be able to take some pics at my daughters birthday disco in december so I picked up 2x canon 600ex rt's and a wireless transmitter.

I was just wondering (mostly from wedding photographers I would have thought), what your process is for setting up for a disco?

Am I right in thinking the best way of doing it is to use manual flash on stands,Camera in manual exposure mode, meter for correct ambient only exposure at a high ISO for chosen aperture that allows a good shutter speed, then bring the ISO down to underexpose the image by 2 or 3 stops and add flash from there?, I thought this because bringing the exposure down using the ISO will introduce less noise and my shutter speed will remain high enough to not blur in any great way.

So for example not real values of any situation... say i set my camera for f2.8 at 1/100, and my ambient only reading was correctly exposed at 6400 iso, I would then drop the iso to maybe 1600 and add flash from there to correctly expose the subject, and maintain some of the ambient light?

...Or am I just way off the mark here?
Click to expand...
It'd work, but I tend personally to drop the shutter speed, it's what the Murricans refer to as 'dragging the shutter', so if I needed 2.8 at 1/100 at 6400, I'd go 800 ISO and 1/30 for the BG to be a stop under (from there adjust to taste) the flash will freeze the subject, it doesn't much matter if a dark OoF background object is also unsharp due to camera movement.

But all of those things depend on the intended use - for grab and grins or the cake cutting I'll up the SS and for 'creative' swirly light shots I'll drop the SS ridiculously low.

And don't get sucked into the 2nd curtain sync issue, for dancing it's unnecessary, 1st curtain sync allows you to keep your timing to get the right shot.

Personally though - I like to keep it fairly simple with on-camera flash bounced, with the occasional 2nd flash to create a starlight in the BG or use it as a rimlight (bare zoomed in)
 
Hard shooting conditions indeed… but I have a strategy in these cases.
I use, in similar situation,
• the largest sensor with the lowest pixel count (D3S) plus
• the brightest lenses at my disposal (ƒ2,8 or brighter)
• an appropriate ISO capable to cope with the available light.​
 
Phil V said:
It'd work, but I tend personally to drop the shutter speed, it's what the Murricans refer to as 'dragging the shutter', so if I needed 2.8 at 1/100 at 6400, I'd go 800 ISO and 1/30 for the BG to be a stop under (from there adjust to taste) the flash will freeze the subject, it doesn't much matter if a dark OoF background object is also unsharp due to camera movement.

But all of those things depend on the intended use - for grab and grins or the cake cutting I'll up the SS and for 'creative' swirly light shots I'll drop the SS ridiculously low.

And don't get sucked into the 2nd curtain sync issue, for dancing it's unnecessary, 1st curtain sync allows you to keep your timing to get the right shot.

Personally though - I like to keep it fairly simple with on-camera flash bounced, with the occasional 2nd flash to create a starlight in the BG or use it as a rimlight (bare zoomed in)
Click to expand...


Thanks for this info. If i've used flash in the past I have just bounced with one TTL flash on camera, however, this party is going to be in an underground basement type establishment, all of the walls and roof are made of stone with black wood beams, so looks like i'm taking the challenge of off camera flash for the first time. I'll have a practice in the house of the advice you have given.
 
Phil V said:
It'd work, but I tend personally to drop the shutter speed, it's what the Murricans refer to as 'dragging the shutter', so if I needed 2.8 at 1/100 at 6400, I'd go 800 ISO and 1/30 for the BG to be a stop under (from there adjust to taste) the flash will freeze the subject, it doesn't much matter if a dark OoF background object is also unsharp due to camera movement.

But all of those things depend on the intended use - for grab and grins or the cake cutting I'll up the SS and for 'creative' swirly light shots I'll drop the SS ridiculously low.

And don't get sucked into the 2nd curtain sync issue, for dancing it's unnecessary, 1st curtain sync allows you to keep your timing to get the right shot.

Personally though - I like to keep it fairly simple with on-camera flash bounced, with the occasional 2nd flash to create a starlight in the BG or use it as a rimlight (bare zoomed in)
Click to expand...
When you do that is the flash in manual or ttl? how does the flash know what to put out?
 
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