Looking For a Good Lens & Some Flash Advice

Lime

Lime

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Sporting the Canon 40D, already got me a nifty fifty and the 75mm 3.5 f-stop lens that comes with the camera. I adore my nifty fifty, but I wish I could zoom out somewhat, especially in indoor settings.

An additional question: How do you guys approach shooting events in an indoor setting? I have the Canon 430EX speedlite flash which I mount on top of the camera and bounce off the ceiling, which feels a little redundant at times, though I've gotten some cool shots with it. I've yet to use a diffuser or flash mounted soft box.

I also had a little trouble with the backgrounds turning out too dark, though I'm lead to believe that's because I had my f-stop at around 5.0 and the ISO at 650. Shooting at a distance in these settings has also proved problematic, as I haven't been able to get the light to bounce far enough. As a result, the photos of food seem to have turned out better than the photos of people.

These are untouched. I don't have Photoshop on this laptop yet, so I haven't even been able to size them. These are some of the shots I like, but I want to get more people in a single shot, lit and clear.

http://i41.tinypic.com/ngbqqo.jpg
http://i39.tinypic.com/244pt78.jpg
http://i40.tinypic.com/dov1qd.jpg
http://i40.tinypic.com/308lds1.jpg
http://i42.tinypic.com/dvpmx2.jpg

This photo here is a prime example of the trouble I'm having:

http://i39.tinypic.com/w20wo7.jpg
 
In your problem pic, it looks like you are trying to bounce the flash off a rather high ceiling. That's asking a lot, bouncing flash gobbles up huge amounts of power. You can try using a low f/number and high ISO, but the rule for bouncing is basically a normal height ceiling or you're pushing your luck.

I wouldn't worry about new kit just yet, your basic problem is technique. You need to understand how flash works, its stengths and weaknesses.

Meanwhile, find somewhere with a lower ceiling or at least a white wall that you can bounce the flash off. Fit a Stofen diffuser and shoot on Av to try and get a longer shutter speed which will balance the ambient background light with the flash. It also looks like you have got some white balance issues but that's another question.
 
I've been shooting on manual, adjusting the shutter speed as I go along.

Ordered a diffuser, waiting for it to arrive.

As far as finding somewhere with a lower ceiling, that wasn't really possible. Everyone was in that room. What alternatives am I looking at? And could you elaborate on understanding how flash works, and the white balance issues?
 
I also have a 430 EX II and am still trying to figure it all out! When shooting in low(ish) light conditions in high ceilings you'll find a 70-200mm f2.8 IS will give you good results as bouncing the flash isn't possible so you have to do what you can without the flash. In terms of white balance I think Hoppy was talking about setting it to a custom as supposed to auto and pointing it to something white in the same conditions you are shooting in.

This is something which can be corrected in Photoshop after if you have shot in RAW so maybe you could play around with that. I was pleasantly surprised at the results I got after playing with the white balance in RAW.

If you want to use a flash where bouncing isn't possible then a diffuser will help, although you may still get an underexposed background. I have recently got an off-camera flash cord which gives great results but I'm not sure it's what you're looking for.
 
Lime said:
I've been shooting on manual, adjusting the shutter speed as I go along.

Ordered a diffuser, waiting for it to arrive.

As far as finding somewhere with a lower ceiling, that wasn't really possible. Everyone was in that room. What alternatives am I looking at? And could you elaborate on understanding how flash works, and the white balance issues?
Click to expand...

That's a big question bud ;) In this situation when bouncing, the ceiling becomes the light source. This has a much bigger area which softens it and gets rid of those harsh shadows you get with direct flash. But in spreading the light in this way, it is greatly diluted so you soon run out of power. Using a lower f/number and/or higher ISO helps a lot, but you can only go so far.

You also need to know about the inverse square law, which is a major factor that affects all aspects of artificial lighting. Basically, as you double the flash to subject distance, the light is reduced to one quarter, which accounts for the fall off in the darker background.

A Stofen-type diffuser works in two ways - it sends light up and all around which bounces off anything nearby for nice soft light, but it also sends light directly forward for a dash of fill-in. It works really well and is dead easy to use, but if there isn't a reasonably low ceiling for it to bounce off, it doesn't have much to work with and isn't very effective. You can get pretty much the same effect with a simple bounce card and they work very well. Your flash doesn't have one built in but they take two seconds to make - see here www.abetterbouncecard.com

The thing I use is a Lumiquest Quik Bounce for £40 and TBH I think it's brilliant. It does pretty much everything - fill-in and variable bounce-fill, horizontal or vertical, including working as a softer direct flash when there is no ceiling around. It's here http://www.lumiquest.com/products/quik-bounce.htm

You can shoot on manual just fine, you just have to adjust the shutter speed to balance with the ambient light. Av does that for you.

On the white balance issue, it looks like the flash is picking up the warm colour off the ceiling and surroundings. Do a custom white balance (see handbook) or correct it in post processing, as suggested.

HTH. I will just say that getting good results in that kind of social situation is not easy. It's different every time and there is not a single perfect solution :)
 
Lime said:
I've been shooting on manual, adjusting the shutter speed as I go along.
Click to expand...

Don't forget that shutter speed doesn't affect the exposure under flash as it would do normally (presuming you are using the flash as the main light source for your subject).

This is because the burst of light that the flash puts out is meaured in the 10's of 1000s of seconds, even at full power. Increasing / decreasing shutter speed with flash is only really going to effect your ambient light levels.

This is based on my limited knowledge and dim mind, so somewhere like stobist.com (http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/03/lighting-101.html) will help more than I.
 
Thanks for the advice, I will test much of it out next time I'm out.
 
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