What did I do wrong?

[tigerimages]

Not sure if this is better suited to here or general sharing, but....

My photography is football photography so I'm pretty adept with my 40D and a 200mm lens but when I got asked to come and take a few of the players in fancy dress on their night out last night I was shocked at how my camera reacted to the setting which i thought were right.

With the speedlight attached, I had a practise at home with TV 1/250th and it came out ok so I tried that and it was very dark, then I had a go on AV at 5.6 and it took about a second to expose.

What should I do in future so as not to ruin what would've been some decent shots?

 

[fraggle101]

maybe you are trying to ballance your shots too well.. with flash i ALWAYS shot manual!! the you dont get the 1 second exposures!! AV will try to expose the WHOLE scene!! thus giving you an unreasonable exposure time if the background is dark too..

Try using 125th and an apperture of say F4-F8 and see what that brings oh! set your ISO to about 400.. then try to use the ISO to adjust the ambient light.. it all depends on what sort of shot you are after.. if you want low DOF the use and open app but adjust your settings accordingly, remember though you can get away with fairly slow shutter speeds but not too slow..

Dont forget your flash is ETTL and will adjust its self to light the subject.. its just a ballencing act for the BG.. you can use 250th! your sync speed but the BG will be dark, then up the ISO to lighten it.. and so on.. dont forget your apperture will not only alter the DOF but will help ballance the BG lighting..


HTH..

 

[tigerimages]

thanks.

1/250th is the max for flash isn't it? Maybe I was being niavely ambitious!

 

[fraggle101]

not really, you need to go manual, then you will get fairly consistant pics, none of the AV rubbish!! it'll be a different exposure every time!! keep to easy settings to start.. no need to goto the sync speed right off.. that will cut down the bg light.. keep it in the middle like 125th and take it from there.. maybe try leaving it there and ONLY use the ISO and Apperture to adjust the ambient light.. your flash will compensate for your settings and light the subject while you controll the bg.. ETTL is good for that.. if you make the exposure dark the flash will increase its output..

Have a test...

Oh and watch the WB!

 

[seriousrikk]

As had been said already - AV was probably not the best choice.

AV will try and expose the entire scene, then use flash to fill in shadows. Your long exposure has blurred the background then the flash (being such a short duration) has frozen all the details.

When I am shooting this sort of scenario I use about 1/30th to 1/125th (Depending on lens) and shoot manual at about F4 - F5.6 (Faster if the lens allows)