External flashes

[handicap18]

Well, after about an hour of giving up, I realized that my ISO was set at 100! I never even thought of ISO! Why, why, why can't I remember all the things that go into this hobby?
.

I don't think anyone can. and I mean ANYONE. I think there's a pretty good explination of why on the new Canon 40D and Nikon D300 that they are including the ISO in the viewfinder whereas in the past none of the camera's had this feature.

I did it last weekend. Outside on a sunny day in midafternoon and I had my ISO set to 1600 from the previous time I used the camera indoors with no flash. DOH!!

I spoke with the photographer on hand and she was shooting at ISO 1600 on the 5D. Her backup camera was a 20D. She said something that made little or no sense to me. She claimed that she could use a shutter speed of, like, 1/15 sec with the flash and it would light up the subject AND let the camera record some ambient light (rather than have that black background) and that the 1/15 second shutter (she claimed she could go down to 1/3!) would not cause the subject to blur, because the flash would light them so well. HUH? I can't imagine that the subject wouldn't blur. Does anyone have a better explaination of this? She was totally confident that it would be fine. I didn't try it, because it sounded stupid, but I can't wait to see her pics. She was so into talking to someone about photography, it was a great talk until she had to get back to work.

One of the recent contests had a picture of a family infront of the Castle at MK. It was at night and the EXIF data showed the pic taken at around 1 second (I forget the exact setting). The castle was lit up beautifully and the flash (second curtain synch I believe) lit up the family perfectly with no blur, though people around them did have motion blur, but because the flash wasn't directed at them, they weren't lit to brightly.

So I can see why the photographer you talked to would do this. You do have to be careful with your composition. Just about anything beyond the main subject people will come out blury from movement

With the 5D, she's probably not worried about noise like we would as the 5D is full frame body with a bigger sensor, therefor a much better performer at high ISO's.

I remember doing a photo assignment in high school photo class. I was in the gym and some girls were shooting hoops. I took a shot of the net as the ball went though using 1/60th and a flash. The shot came out great with the ball perfectly still from being frozen for that split second by the flash.

Glad to read that your getting better results. This learning stuff can be a real pain. Keep up the good work.

 

[AndrewWG]

Kyle,

Yeah, I know everyone does it. I just wish I wasn't one of those everyones! I think that some of my problems come as a result of being a point and shooter for so long. Actually, even when I used my film Rebel, it was always on AUTO, so I guess I've been a P&S'er forever.

I'll have to try that flash trick sometime. Right now, I'm not into tricks, just trying to learn.

At least one thing I learned from last weekend is that if you don't take FULL advantage of the open bar, your photos come out better! This allows you to get some crazy shots of the people after they have taken FULL advantage of the open bar!

 

[MarkBarbieri]

The flash "trick" works because the flash itself is nearly instantaneous. That's what freezes the motion. It will work for anything that either doesn't move (like static stuff in the background) or for stuff that does move but is lit overwhelmingly by the flash.

As for remembering ISO and all the other stuff, I sympathize. I would really like a "reset" button on my camera that resets everything to a user-definable state. Then I can make adjustments from there. When I pick up my camera, I'd like it to always be set to ISO 400, Av mode with the aperture at f/5.6, mirror lock-up turned off, low-speed drive mode, continuous AF, all focus points active, RAW, no exposure bracketing, no exposure compensation, evaluative metering, and probably several other common settings that don't immediately leap to mind. The problem is that I'll change one or more of these to suit what I'm shooting and then forget about it. It's obvious when you've left mirror lock-up on or set the drive to two second delay, but it's easy to forget that you left spot metering on or that you dialed in some exposure compensation.

Even though I have ISO in my viewfinder (although it is inexplicably not visible while you are adjusting it), but I've still been known to forget about it and take a couple of quick shots in sunlight at ISO 1600 or one inside at ISO 50. With experience, you'll quickly notice that your shutter speeds aren't what you'd expect for the conditions and track down what is throwing them off. Still, there are other settings that can burn you and you won't notice all day. I once shot a few dozen shots in small JPG because I forgot that I'd turned that on for a dust detection shot.

 

[MICKEY88]

I spoke with the photographer on hand and she was shooting at ISO 1600 on the 5D. Her backup camera was a 20D. She said something that made little or no sense to me. She claimed that she could use a shutter speed of, like, 1/15 sec with the flash and it would light up the subject AND let the camera record some ambient light (rather than have that black background) and that the 1/15 second shutter (she claimed she could go down to 1/3!) would not cause the subject to blur, because the flash would light them so well. HUH? I can't imagine that the subject wouldn't blur. Does anyone have a better explaination of this? She was totally confident that it would be fine. I didn't try it, because it sounded stupid, but I can't wait to see her pics. She was so into talking to someone about photography, it was a great talk until she had to get back to work.

it's not stupid at all..sounds similar to this starting point I posted last week..

iso 400-800
manual or aperture priority
f 1.4-f 4...fastest possible....
1/30 to 1/60 shutter....

a good way to see how this works is , set up outside at night faceing a street, do a long exposure as a car drives by, because the car isn't in one point of the image long enough to get exposed properly you won't see it in the image,things not lit well by the flash won't be as clear in the pic, the flash will light the main subject brightly enough to make a clear image of that and it will not be blurred


One thing I realized too (and I always knew) was that metering for a black tux and a white dress in the same shot is a nightmare! I had to PP almost all my shots to get a better exposure. I wish I could do it direct from the camera, but my knowledge on this is too limited right now.
spot meter for the dress it's better to lose the shadows or dark than the highlight, it's also better to get the bride correct, rather than the groom..
Well, in the end, I ended up with photos that I would think are above average from someone not getting paid to do the event and that makes me pretty darned happy with the whole experience.

good luck on wedding 3..

 

[AndrewWG]

good luck on wedding 3..

I'll have to give this a try for sure. It seems cool and I was sure she knew what she was talking about, just couldn't grasp the concept at the time.

Luckily, there isn't a third wedding anytime soon. I kind of wish there was from a photography standpoint, but I have had enough of the wedding scene for awhile.

Also, I think it was you who mentioned Zenfolio. That is a great site. I opened a free 14 day account and put the wedding on there. I also ended up getting a full account when I saw how nice it really was. It never gave me the option of using the referral number though. That was a bit annoying. I think I should have put it in when I opened the free account, but I can't recall seeing a place for it. There certainly was no option for it when I "upgraded" my account to a pay account. I'll have to ding them on that one and see what they say.

 

[Groucho]

I don't think anyone can. and I mean ANYONE. I think there's a pretty good explination of why on the new Canon 40D and Nikon D300 that they are including the ISO in the viewfinder whereas in the past none of the camera's had this feature.

This is an honest question - don't most of the C/N DSLRs at least have an ISO warning in the viewfinder? My camera has an "ISO" indicator that is on in the viewfinder (and top LCD) when the ISO is above a certain level (which you can set in the custom menu.) This is easy to overlook too (otherwise I'd never have forgotten to reset the ISO back down after going outside, which I definitely have done including last month at DL) but I suspect that the idea that actually displaying the specific ISO vs an ISO "idiot light" is going to be the magic bullet to stop such things from happening is kind of wishful thinking. There's so much information listed there and if you're anything like me, you're a lot more focused on framing the shot rather that reading the fine print on the bottom!

Probably the only foolproof solution is a giant "HEY IDIOT YOU'RE AT 1600 ISO" (or higher) that shows in the middle of the viewfinder!

She claimed that she could use a shutter speed of, like, 1/15 sec with the flash and it would light up the subject AND let the camera record some ambient light (rather than have that black background) and that the 1/15 second shutter (she claimed she could go down to 1/3!) would not cause the subject to blur, because the flash would light them so well. HUH? I can't imagine that the subject wouldn't blur. Does anyone have a better explaination of this?

The others have explained it, I have an example... not exactly the same situation but same basic concept.

This was an experiment I was doing last Christmas, I had the monorail set up around out Christmas tree with the Epcot geosphere (note no silly wand attached ) and set the camera on a tripod and hand-held my (old) flash to take a shot halfway through. I think I was using my homemade remote shutter release so I was getting variable shutter speeds. This one is 2.1 seconds at F8.

OK, not a great photo by any means, but you can see how the flash "froze" the monorail car even with the shutter being over for over two seconds. (In full size, you can even clearly read the lettering on the side.) With a shorter exposure, you'll see it much more so, because the background won't be as bright.

I just finished going through the 500+ shots I took at a friend's wedding from a couple months ago... they are definitely harder to shoot than they look! I did find that I got some neat photos with the flash and my fisheye lens from the edge of the dance floor. Any excuse to bring out the fish..........

 

[AndrewWG]

This is an honest question - don't most of the C/N DSLRs at least have an ISO warning in the viewfinder? My camera has an "ISO" indicator that is on in the viewfinder (and top LCD) when the ISO is above a certain level (which you can set in the custom menu.) This is easy to overlook too (otherwise I'd never have forgotten to reset the ISO back down after going outside, which I definitely have done including last month at DL) but I suspect that the idea that actually displaying the specific ISO vs an ISO "idiot light" is going to be the magic bullet to stop such things from happening is kind of wishful thinking. There's so much information listed there and if you're anything like me, you're a lot more focused on framing the shot rather that reading the fine print on the bottom!

Probably the only foolproof solution is a giant "HEY IDIOT YOU'RE AT 1600 ISO" (or higher) that shows in the middle of the viewfinder!


The others have explained it, I have an example... not exactly the same situation but same basic concept.

This was an experiment I was doing last Christmas, I had the monorail set up around out Christmas tree with the Epcot geosphere (note no silly wand attached ) and set the camera on a tripod and hand-held my (old) flash to take a shot halfway through. I think I was using my homemade remote shutter release so I was getting variable shutter speeds. This one is 2.1 seconds at F8.

OK, not a great photo by any means, but you can see how the flash "froze" the monorail car even with the shutter being over for over two seconds. (In full size, you can even clearly read the lettering on the side.) With a shorter exposure, you'll see it much more so, because the background won't be as bright.

I just finished going through the 500+ shots I took at a friend's wedding from a couple months ago... they are definitely harder to shoot than they look! I did find that I got some neat photos with the flash and my fisheye lens from the edge of the dance floor. Any excuse to bring out the fish..........

Groucho,

As far as I have ever seen, the camera (30D) doesn't tell me anything about ISO unless I press the button to change the ISO. This is not a problem because I think I will have a computer chip implanted in my brain to never forget this in the future. My problem was not one of forgetting to change it, but more one of forgetting that it even existed and that it could get me faster shutter speeds! A moron moment that I am glad I found out the answer to before the end of the night. I'm also glad that I was the one who remembered and wasn't being told. At least that made me feel better about it.


That is a cool shot of the Christmas tree monorail. Now, if you hadn't used the flash, what would I see there? I know it wouldn't be as well lit, but I would assume the monorail would be just a blur. Am I right about that?

 

[boBQuincy]

Here's another example, this one taken at a local theater production using ambient light with flash.

The EXIF:

Shutter speed: 1/50 sec
Aperture: 5.6
Exposure mode: Av
Exposure compensation: -1/3
Flash: External E-TTL
Flash exposure compensation: -2/3
Metering mode: Evaluative
Drive mode: Continuous (low): frame 1
ISO: 800
Lens: 24 to 105mm
Focal length: 50mm

Notice the movement of the hand, while most everything else is fairly sharp. This is from the slow shutter speed.

Here is a more extreme example, with a shutter speed of 1/4 second:

The flash will get a sharp image but any motion will be blurred if the ambient light is set for any appreciable amount of the total mix.

 

[AndrewWG]

good luck on wedding 3..

Update: I e-mailed Zenfolio and they credited me the $5 and should have given you the referral credit. They got back to me within 30 minutes of my e-mail! Now that is customer service!

 

[Groucho]

That is a cool shot of the Christmas tree monorail. Now, if you hadn't used the flash, what would I see there? I know it wouldn't be as well lit, but I would assume the monorail would be just a blur. Am I right about that?

Thanks. I think you'd see almost nothing. Since I fired the flash by hand (completely untethered to anything!), it was not right at the beginning or end of the shutter - the green light is on the nose and note that it extends past where you see the actual nose of the monorail. You can just barely see a shadow there.

Of course, you'd see more of it on a shorter exposure, but this is a handy trick for long exposures. If you keep the shutter open long enough, you can make moving things almost invisible. You'll see this in tripod shots from Disney, and I saw a good example once in a book of a shot of a highway at a short shutter speed, with all the cars visible... and the same shot but with a long shutter (and the aperture changed to keep the same overall exposure) and the highway looks completely empty. Pretty neat.

 

[AndrewWG]

Here's another example, this one taken at a local theater production using ambient light with flash.

The EXIF:

Shutter speed: 1/50 sec
Aperture: 5.6
Exposure mode: Av
Exposure compensation: -1/3
Flash: External E-TTL
Flash exposure compensation: -2/3
Metering mode: Evaluative
Drive mode: Continuous (low): frame 1
ISO: 800
Lens: 24 to 105mm
Focal length: 50mm

Notice the movement of the hand, while most everything else is fairly sharp. This is from the slow shutter speed.

Here is a more extreme example, with a shutter speed of 1/4 second:

The flash will get a sharp image but any motion will be blurred if the ambient light is set for any appreciable amount of the total mix.

Those are cool examples. The car is nice, but being that there are bright lights, did that cause the motion blur or was it the shutter speed? I like how you can see basically how far the car travelled in 1/4 second by how far the headlights moved.

I am guessing that at the wedding last night in the very dimly lit room, the subject would be frozen by the flash and there would be no motion blur?

This subject is making my head hurt...

 

[Groucho]

Groucho,

As far as I have ever seen, the camera (30D) doesn't tell me anything about ISO unless I press the button to change the ISO.

BTW, I did a quick check of a couple reviews, and they indicate that the 30D does show the ISO in the viewfinder...?

Or is it only momentarily as you actually change it?

 

[AndrewWG]

BTW, I did a quick check of a couple reviews, and they indicate that the 30D does show the ISO in the viewfinder...?

Or is it only momentarily as you actually change it?

First, that would be cool to see how the moving objects don't show up. I'm going to have to try that one for sure. Now I am totally intrigued since it goes against everything I've thought about photography and how it works.

Second, you are right, it does show the ISO in the viewfinder, but I never noticed it because I have to take the camera away from my eye to find the right button to change the ISO. It only shows when you are changing it, not while shooting, unfortunately.

 

[MICKEY88]

First, that would be cool to see how the moving objects don't show up. I'm going to have to try that one for sure. Now I am totally intrigued since it goes against everything I've thought about photography and how it works.

Second, you are right, it does show the ISO in the viewfinder, but I never noticed it because I have to take the camera away from my eye to find the right button to change the ISO. It only shows when you are changing it, not while shooting, unfortunately.

if you look in this folder, you will see some pics have light trails from cars that drove thru the shot, but you won't see the cars....

http://www.starrrshots.com/p1053022151/?photo=h28FDD3DF#687723487

I just realized there are some other wild shots at the end of the folder, you will see what happens if you zoom during a long exposure..

 

[MICKEY88]

Update: I e-mailed Zenfolio and they credited me the $5 and should have given you the referral credit. They got back to me within 30 minutes of my e-mail! Now that is customer service!

hmm I just checked and they didn't give me any credit...

 

[AndrewWG]

hmm I just checked and they didn't give me any credit...

That is odd. I used this code which I copied and pasted from the other thread: XE1-C1X-2JF

Maybe you should fire off an e-mail to them. My user id on zenfolio is awgriffith


Here is the e-mail correspondence I received:

Hello Andrew,

Welcome to Zenfolio, and thank you for contacting us.

We'll be happy to help with that. We have issued $5 credit to your account,
and another $5 credit to the account of the person who referred you.

During signup, there was a field asking for a referral code, you might have
missed it. But it is not a big deal, we have straightened it out for you.

Let us know if you have any other questions, we are here to help.

Regards,
Zenfolio Customer Support

 

[Groucho]

I just realized there are some other wild shots at the end of the folder, you will see what happens if you zoom during a long exposure..

I did that with Le Cellier in Epcot... (another shot that I haven't corrected white balance on yet).

 

[handicap18]

I just realized there are some other wild shots at the end of the folder, you will see what happens if you zoom during a long exposure..

I remember doing those type of shots in high school photography. I'll have to give it a try again some one of these days. It is a pretty cool effect with the right subject.

I like the images where you zoomed in rather than out.

 

[MICKEY88]

I remember doing those type of shots in high school photography. I'll have to give it a try again some one of these days. It is a pretty cool effect with the right subject.

I like the images where you zoomed in rather than out.

not sure if it's in that set or not, butr I have some where I zoomed in and out several times during the exposure,,, when I get bored anything can happen..LOL

 

[MICKEY88]

That is odd. I used this code which I copied and pasted from the other thread: XE1-C1X-2JF

Maybe you should fire off an e-mail to them. My user id on zenfolio is awgriffith


Here is the e-mail correspondence I received:

Hello Andrew,

Welcome to Zenfolio, and thank you for contacting us.

We'll be happy to help with that. We have issued $5 credit to your account,
and another $5 credit to the account of the person who referred you.

During signup, there was a field asking for a referral code, you might have
missed it. But it is not a big deal, we have straightened it out for you.

Let us know if you have any other questions, we are here to help.

Regards,
Zenfolio Customer Support

I emailed them with the info you gave me, and 25 minutes later they emailed back asking me to check again, and sure enough the credit is now there..thanks...