Party in small room - advice needed

All bar one

All bar one

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Name
Neil
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PRACTICE PICS ADDED

:thinking: Its the Mother in laws 80th in the next few days.

Its virtually all in 1 room (standard height ceilings, not high ones) which will be lit by standard lounge room lights.

I have a 400d - I'm familiar with its workings

I have a 580ex - which ive never used before

I have a nifty fifty

I have the 18-55 IS

and now have a Tokina 80-400 AT-XD.

I have never photograhed people in anger - all help greatly appreciated :):):):help::):):)
 
18 - 55 will allow for the wide end needed in a small room, and bounce the flash off the ceiling (I assume that the head tilts).

The 80-400 can stay at home unless you plan shooting from the house across the road ;)

Between now and the party get some practice in with the lens and flash at home, just to get used to how bouncing it effects exposure.

Not familiar with Canon, but on my Nikon I would just set to P and let the camera work everything out to start with, then start trying it on Aperture Priority.
 
Martyn... said:
18 - 55 will allow for the wide end needed in a small room, and bounce the flash off the ceiling (I assume that the head tilts).

The 80-400 can stay at home unless you plan shooting from the house across the road ;)

Between now and the party get some practice in with the lens and flash at home, just to get used to how bouncing it effects exposure.

Not familiar with Canon, but on my Nikon I would just set to P and let the camera work everything out to start with, then start trying it on Aperture Priority.
Click to expand...

Many thanks Martyn, any ideas of AF points, ISO settings, WB using camera flash or 580 flash for this situation etc etc :help::help::help:
 
All bar one said:
Many thanks Martyn, any ideas of AF points, ISO settings, WB using camera flash or 580 flash for this situation etc etc :help::help::help:
Click to expand...

AF Points sorry not a clue on your Canon rig, ISO with Flash small room 200 - 400 should be fine, white balance set to flash, for a slightly warmer picture you could try sunlight.

As I said fire off some shots at home and see what happens, with bouncing the flash you may need to +ev the flash a bit.

The thing is I am used to the Nikon flash system which is a piece of cake, it meters it all for you, I am assuming that your Canon will do the same.

Can you tilt the flash head at 45º so it bounces off the ceiling?
 
1/160, f5.6 - f8, ISO 200 - 400...flash bounched from the ceiling with +1 compensation (adjust for ceiling height).

A standard type of setting for firing off multiple candids/unposed portraits :)
 
From your choice of lenses, I'd agree the 18-55 is the lens to choose.
Camera in M and flash in E-TTL

I like some ambient light in my images. If it's a normal room, I guess you'd be able to shoot ISO400 or 800 (higher ISO will mean the flash will recycle faster).

Shutter speed controls the ambient light. You will get a pleasing image with a shutter speed closer to your ambient light reading (or maybe a stop below) - so I'd say somewhere between 1/60th maybe 1/100th.

Aperture controls the flash power. Your lens varies the max aperture over the zoom range so to get over this, shoot at f5.6. The aperture should be able to remain consistent across your zoom range.

f5.6 should give a reasonable depth of field, shutter speed should allow some ambient light - but keep it above 1/60th - camera shake and subject motion can blur your shot!

Check your histogram too. If you see a dark looking image, add some exposure compensation - I'd guess 1/3rd or maybe 2/3rds.

Play around and enjoy.
 
Piece of cake with that excellent flash of yours!

It has a little white catch-light panel that pulls out, designed exactly for the job, so when you bounce the flash off the ceiling, a tiny bit of light is reflected forward just filling in the faces a little and putting a nice highlight in the eyes.

18-55mm lens is perfect, at around f/5.6. You should have enough light from that flash for ISO100 if the ceiling is normal height, and the camera will automatically set colour balance for flash as soon as you switch it on.

Set the camera on Av so that the shutter speed will slow to get some ambient light in there. It will warm up the background a bit which should be nice for this kind of thing. Make sure your shutter speed doesn't drop below about 1/30sec though, or you might get blurring/ghosting if people move. Open the lens to f/4 or increase the ISO to get this. The flash will take care of any camera shake.

Shoot a test pic to see what exposure and colour are like - the ceiling might give it a bit of a cast, in which case adjust the custom white balance (easy - see the instruction book).

On important stuff like this, best to shoot Raw as well as JPEG as with Raw you've got more scope for recovery in post processing, including the white balance if it's really important to get the colour of dresses spot on. Raw gobbles up memory though, so make sure you've got enough space on your card for plenty of pics.

You might want to try some ambient light pics with the 50mm - would be good if there's a cake with candles as flash will wreck it. But you get very little depth of field at f/1.8 so focus on the eyes to make sure at least they are sharp, and don't let the shutter speed drop below 1/80sec to avoid camera shake. It's best to bump up the ISO than to risk a slower shutter speed unless you're super-steady and confident. Use centre-point AF, and pre-focus with a half-press on the shutter release (doesn't everybody always shoot like that?).

If you get to do a few test pics before the event, even better. Once you know that the technical side is sorted, you will relax and get better pictures out of people, and you might even enjoy the evening yourself!
 
HoppyUK said:
and pre-focus with a half-press on the shutter release (doesn't everybody always shoot like that?).
Click to expand...

Not all ;) But some great advice there, thanks.

I use (C.Fn) 4, 1: AE lock/AF and focus with the star button *

Started to use it around a year ago, have not looked back since.

Steve
 
The only thing I'd add to Hoppy's advice is that if the ambient is so poor that you can't sensibly use Av then go the 'M' mode, shutter at 1/160, aperture at f5.6-8 and ISO at 100 (flash bounced as suggested with the catch-light card out).
 
Forgot to say - take spare batteries for the camera and flash!

I'd also take a back-up camera, but only because I'm paranoid :D It would be prudent to pop a compact in your pocket, or check with one of the guests that they'll also bring their camera along - just in case.
 
Been practicing last evening while her indoors was getting ready for our friday night ruby - 8hrs left to go. All assistance greatly appreciated so far...

...from these pics if there's any more tips let me know.

No pp at all other that resize.

Hope you can see these cos I cant as i'm havin probs linking from picasa

1. Applying the mustard
party%


2.
party%


3.
party%


4.
party%


5.
party%


I'm not sure but I think I had the flash angled for all but the last. Does exposure etc look ok? Thanks to all.
 
All bar one said:
Hope you can see these cos I cant as i'm havin probs linking from picasa
Click to expand...

It's not working for me.

On your exposure question, a better guide to accuracy is the histogram. But if it looks good on screen, then it can't be very far out.
 
They look dark to me - but shoot RAW and you can fix almost anything afterwards - still better to get it right in camera of course. I can see the first 3 - better if you left EXIF intact and I could see what you had done.
 
Can see them all here now - they are on the dark side. You may be using a programme that strips out EXIF - or picasaweb may do that - I don't know. You need about 1 stop more exposure I'd say - in all of them. This should be a really easy job to shoot - bread and butter - once you've done it a few times! :) More practice - up the flash +1 and you should be OK - but do more tests. Do they look Ok to you? Or do you think they look a bit dark?

Edit: there is some EXIF data on picasaweb - if you click on more info - so picasa is stripping it out.

Remember your shutter speed has NO effect on the flash - that is controlled by aperture only - so I'd stick with 1/60th in this situation and try to get around f/8 for the flash.
 
Still nothing...
 
LOL Still nothing on the link. Still best to shoot Raw as well JPEG for this. You can use the JPEGS for now and work on the Raws later if you need to. It costs nothing except a bit of memory space.
 
if the lights are all tungesten putting a orange gel on the flash will sort out the mixed light source problem.
What colour are the ceilings as yellow ceilings would do this for you

shoot in RAW and fix the wb and exposure later, if your good at it a little PP goes a long way. (unless your good at it avoid using PS heavily i find it steals my time)
 
:'( Thanks for everyones help, unfortunately it was a bit of a disaster with a not very conducive atmosphere for shoving camera's in peoples faces. Not to say we didnt have a nice time - but it just didnt feel right. Consequently, the pics are crap. Possibly got 2 fair ones from 50 taken. Will post this evening but out in a few mins to a fund raising day for the British Heart Foundation.
Thanks again for all the help.
 
You need to show a few of the pics you are NOT happy with too - so we can suggest where you might have improved. In these situations - if you want the pics - you just have to make them happen.
 
Make your images a little smaller. You need to copy the URL of each image to make them appear like this.

You didn't bounce the flash did you? Your shutter speed is on the high side as the backgrounds are dark.

+1 on FEC would have helped. What aperture did you use?


party%20practice%202%20800%20%282%29.jpg
 
I am sorry to hear your images didn't turn out as well as you expected, but post them up anyway! you never know, some people on here may love them
 
Thanks all...

Eos, I cant remember the Aperture settings as I was just trying to get a feel for it before the party - and to be honest I was happy with the test shots (by some form of miracle they make the Mrs look ok) ....

.... so here's a few of the very few images I saved. I think it was the ''feel'' I got in the room that it wasnt going to work for me with a lot of mainly elderley folk, and because of this I bottled out of sticking the camera in peoples faces. The next day I was out taking more people piccies and felt confident (and got a few nice shots) but that was in the great outdoors, maybe i'm not used to shooting indoors and paniced a bit :(

Joyce%2080%20yrs%20old%20800%20pixel%20copy.jpg


Evie%20%40%2080th.jpg


Evie%20%40%2080th%20800copy%20.jpg


Joyce%2080%20yrs%20old%202nd%20800%20pixel%20copy.jpg


The last image here is typical of the boring nothingness that appeared in most of the shots. Once again, thanks for the many tips and comment. Neil
 
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
this is shot with direct flash - I thought you were going to bounce? Subject too close to a flash on top of the camera I suspect. With the correct lighting technique this could have been a really nice image.

When I made the above comment I could only see one shot of the little girl.

That first shot is pretty good - the two of the little girl have problems because the flash is direct, on the camera, and she is too close. The last one is ok technically - but not a lot going on - you really have to MAKE the pictures happen in these situations. Trust me - next time - it will be easier! :)
 
the bottom photo would have looked a bit better if it was more to the right so the lady in the red shirt was in, but that girl looks nice :thumbs:
 
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