Help with Pentax k100D Super

[dolPhinlovEr83]

My sister is getting married in Disney on July 1st. She has asked me to photograph her Dessert party to save her some money on be\ringing a photographer in. I am not a professional, it's more of a hobby for me. So we were there just last week and I was practicing taking pics of her and her fiance. I got some great pictures, but then tried taking some during the fireworks. The problem is that I h\got some very nice pictures with the flash on my sister and the fireworks in the background (or as good as I could get holding my camera as steady as possible. So, I know I need to bring a tripod for this occasion, but my problem is my flash. The flash on the camera (not detachable) seems to be too bright often almost whiting out my sister, but also making her squint consistently. Is there something I can do with this flash or something I can use to still get a good picture of them without blinding them as well? Since I am not a professional, I take way more shots to get some good ones out of it. Should I buy an external flash to attach to the camera that may be less harsh??? Any help with this would be great!!!

P.S. My back-up plan is to have some fireworks shots already taken alone (got some nice ones this past vacation and going back once more in April) and then cutting and pasting a nice pic of the two of them into it!! But, shhhhhhhhhh!!!! my sis doesn't come on this board, hehe!

 

[WVDisGeek]

An external flash would allow you to reduce the power to avoid overpowering the shot. I don't know specifically about the K100 Super, but you may be able to reduce the power on the pop-up flash.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

Try this. Find a strand of Christmas lights and hang those someplace outside. Those will be a stand-in for the fireworks while you experiment. Stick your subject someplace in front of the lights, but keep them in a fairly dark area...as dark as you can find.

If you have a remote shutter release, set your camera to "bulb" exposure mode. If you don't have a remote shutter release (think about getting one), put your camera in manual exposure mode and set your shutter speed for 4 seconds. Set your aperture to f/8 and your ISO to 200. Turn your flash on. Put the camera on a tripod. Take your picture. If you are in bulb mode, hold the shutter open for about 4 seconds.

What should happen is this. First, your flash should fire to light up your subject. Then, the shutter should stay open for a few more seconds, which should give the Christmas lights or fireworks time to expose. Make sure that your subject stays as still as possible during the exposure.

 

[llrain]

There is a wealth of information available at www.dpreview.com
there is even a Pentax SLR forum full of wonderful people who are eager to help people out.

 

[ukcatfan]

I do not have the super, but the menus should be the same. There is a setting called flash exposure compensation.

 

[Groucho]

Flash exposure compensation should definitely be an option that may help... you can also change the metering mode, set it to center-weighted or spot metering and it will only worry about properly exposuring the middle of the frame rather than the entire photo including the inky blackness behind the people!

If squinting is a problem, you can try using red-eye reduction and see if that helps.

Doing what Mark recommends could definitely get you a more impressive photo but at the expensive of requiring extra hardware; ie, a tripod and remote shutter release. Of course, if you already have 'em, that's worth trying too! That's the nice thing about fireworks at Disney, you've got about 10-15 minutes to get the shot right.

 

[dolPhinlovEr83]

Thank you to all that responded. Mark, I will definitely try your method. I had put it on a nighttime portrait setting. The bulb flashed and then the shutter remained open for a couple of seconds to capture the background. This worked well to get the two together, it's just that the flash seemed to bright on my subject. I will definitely try the settings suggested though!

Thank you all!

I'm sure I'll be back posting as the time for her wedding draws near