# Shooting with the flash



## dannyzak (Mar 1, 2013)

When shooting with the flash at a party, what ISO would you set your camera to? I understand that the higher the ISO the more noise in the picture.

How do you usually shoot at a party?
ISO, Fstop
I'm talking about general pics, single line 2,3,4 ppl posing. 

Does the shutter speed indicator should also be in the middle or when using flash it does not matter?


----------



## pgriz (Mar 1, 2013)

It depends on the camera, but if your sensor is less than 4 years old, you can probably go to ISO 800 without getting objectionable noise.  I shoot a 580EX II, bounce mode (back wall, ceiling) on a T1i, with f/8 for DOF, 1/30-1/200 sec for ambient (lower if I want ambient, higher if I don't) with ISO at 400 or 800, with the flash in E-TTL mode, and Manual shooting mode.  That's for casual family or party shots.  For more formal ones, I usually break out the radio triggers, umbrellas, reflectors..set the ISO to 100, and set up the flash power manually using a flash meter - better shadow/highlight control, more consistency, and better quality images.  Yeah, even at parties.  Because and the end of the day (or night), people don't want to be zombified.


----------



## dannyzak (Mar 1, 2013)

pgriz said:


> It depends on the camera, but if your sensor is less than 4 years old, you can probably go to ISO 800 without getting objectionable noise.  I shoot a 580EX II, bounce mode (back wall, ceiling) on a T1i, with f/8 for DOF, 1/30-1/200 sec for ambient (lower if I want ambient, higher if I don't) with ISO at 400 or 800, with the flash in E-TTL mode, and Manual shooting mode.  That's for casual family or party shots.  For more formal ones, I usually break out the radio triggers, umbrellas, reflectors..set the ISO to 100, and set up the flash power manually using a flash meter - better shadow/highlight control, more consistency, and better quality images.  Yeah, even at parties.  Because and the end of the day (or night), people don't want to be zombified.



Thank u, great info

I'm using Canon T4i with 430EX II flash


----------



## pgriz (Mar 1, 2013)

What you DON'T want to do is shoot direct flash - that gives a harsh ugly light with hard shadows.  You DO want to have a large source of light for pleasing pictures, and having a white wall and ceiling behind you is a neat trick to spread the light out and make it nice.  Shooting off the ceiling only will give "racoon eyes", because their brows will hide their eyes from the light bouncing off the ceiling above.  As well, bouncing the light really spreads it out, so you want to have both the wall and the ceiling closer to you rather than further.  Under those conditions, the max range for your subject will be about 6-8 ft. (assuming the wall is 1-2 ft. behind you, and the ceiling is 2-3 ft above you).  Further than that, and the flash just isn't powerful enough to illuminate the larger space.


----------



## Josh66 (Mar 1, 2013)

I think first you have to decide if you want to balance the flash with ambient light, or just go with the flash for the whole exposure.

If you want to include some ambient background light, you'll tend to go with higher ISO.  If you don't care about that, I would probably go with whatever gives you the cleanest image.


----------



## o hey tyler (Mar 1, 2013)

What is this "ppl" you speak of?


----------



## dannyzak (Mar 1, 2013)

o hey tyler said:


> What is this "ppl" you speak of?



ppl stands for people, shortcut


----------



## dannyzak (Mar 1, 2013)

O|||||||O said:


> I think first you have to decide if you want to balance the flash with ambient light, or just go with the flash for the whole exposure.
> 
> If you want to include some ambient background light, you'll tend to go with higher ISO.  If you don't care about that, I would probably go with whatever gives you the cleanest image.



I'm just the beginner and I know there are many different ways and tricks to photography but as a beginner I first want to learn the basics of photography. My images don't have to be top quality and I know they will not be because it takes lots of practice but I would like to learn basics. To play safe, you know what I mean 
For example: 
Candid shots, beginners shots 
At a party, dark room
I walk in and don't really know how to set it up, ISO 100 or 500 where a pro will already know a scene like that ISO between 400 - 800 Fstop 8, 11 or 5.6 and 1/200 shutter and take it from there. 
I just would like for my images to look ok, acceptable and learn from there  

I really appropriate any help you guys can give us, I already know more then I did few hours ago. Next few days I'll go out and practice but I already know where to start and some basics 
Thank you for all your help.


----------



## pgriz (Mar 1, 2013)

So, here's the practice routine for you to know what to expect of your equipment.
Set you ISO at 100.  Set your f/stop to f/5.6 and your shutter speed to 1/200.  Shooting mode will be manual, focusing will be one-shot.  Enable ONLY your center AF point.  Put your 430EX on the camera, set the flash mode to E-TTL.  Rotate the flashhead so that is is pointing backward, inclined about 45-60 degrees from the horizontal.  Put a white wall behind you about 1 ft. away.  Put a subject in front of you, say 6 ft. away.  Use your CENTER AF point to focus the camera, and when the AF point flashes, it's in focus. Shoot. 

Now look at the histogram of the image.  If most of the vertical bars are on the left, the image is underexposed.  S'Ok.  Adjust your ISO to 200 and repeat the exercise.  Check the histogram again.  The bars should have move a bit towards the right.  Adjust your ISO to 400 and repeat the exercise.  Change the ISO to 800, and repeat the exercise.  Change the ISO to 1600 and repeat the exercise.  Now download all the images you've taken into DPP (the software that came with your camera), and start examining them on the computer.  Now you'll be able to see which ISO gave you the best exposure.  The goal is to use the lowest ISO which still allows you a good exposure.

Now do the same exercise, with your subject at 10 ft.  You'll find out that you need higher ISO to get an equivalent exposure.  But DO THE EXERCISE!  and then download to the computer and examine the images on a large monitor.  That's how to learn what works and what doesn't.  And you don't need to ask some windbag on the internet how to do it.


----------



## dannyzak (Mar 2, 2013)

pgriz said:


> So, here's the practice routine for you to know what to expect of your equipment.
> Set you ISO at 100.  Set your f/stop to f/5.6 and your shutter speed to 1/200.  Shooting mode will be manual, focusing will be one-shot.  Enable ONLY your center AF point.  Put your 430EX on the camera, set the flash mode to E-TTL.  Rotate the flashhead so that is is pointing backward, inclined about 45-60 degrees from the horizontal.  Put a white wall behind you about 1 ft. away.  Put a subject in front of you, say 6 ft. away.  Use your CENTER AF point to focus the camera, and when the AF point flashes, it's in focus. Shoot.
> 
> Now look at the histogram of the image.  If most of the vertical bars are on the left, the image is underexposed.  S'Ok.  Adjust your ISO to 200 and repeat the exercise.  Check the histogram again.  The bars should have move a bit towards the right.  Adjust your ISO to 400 and repeat the exercise.  Change the ISO to 800, and repeat the exercise.  Change the ISO to 1600 and repeat the exercise.  Now download all the images you've taken into DPP (the software that came with your camera), and start examining them on the computer.  Now you'll be able to see which ISO gave you the best exposure.  The goal is to use the lowest ISO which still allows you a good exposure.
> ...



Thank you so much, great info.


----------



## daggah (Mar 2, 2013)

Here's an example:  bounced flash, high ISO, rear curtain sync, and a slow shutter speed to allow the ambient background lighting to "burn in" before the flash fires, freezing my subject:




BFFs by davidgevert, on Flickr

This was taken in a dark bar, with most of the ceiling painted black.  There were small areas where the paint was white so I asked my subjects to stand where I could bounce the light off that and took out the built-in bounce card to fill in their faces/eyes to avoid the "racoon eye" effect mentioned earlier.


----------



## dannyzak (Mar 2, 2013)

daggah said:


> Here's an example:  bounced flash, high ISO, rear curtain sync, and a slow shutter speed to allow the ambient background lighting to "burn in" before the flash fires, freezing my subject:
> 
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/daggah/8519571707/
> BFFs by davidgevert, on Flickr
> ...



Thank u


----------



## Robin_Usagani (Mar 2, 2013)

daggah said:


> Rear curtain sync is useful for these types of pictures because it basically affects the order in which the scene is created on the sensor.  If my flash had fired at the start of the picture, then the ambient lighting would've basically been layered on top and blurred the image.  Sometimes, due to people moving and camera shake because of the lower shutter, you'll get kind of a ghosty affect around your subject with rear curtain sync, but it's better than front curtain sync where the whole picture would've been blurry, or having the ambient light in the background completely shut out of the frame.



You are mistaken about that.  It wont matter whether it is front or rear.  Only matters if you shoot it so slow (with enough ambient) and you want to show the movement blur.  If the subject is running, rear curtain will give you shadow behind the runner while front will give you shadow in front.  If it is just a picture of people looking at the camera, it wont matter.  Front or rear will produce the exactly the same thing.
http://www.exposureguide.com/images/high-speed-sync-flash/rearfront-curtain-flash.jpg


----------



## pgriz (Mar 2, 2013)

Robin is right.  The flash exposure where you see also the ambient is actually 2 exposures at the same time - the ISO/Aperture/Shutter speed determine how the ambient will show up, and the ISO/Aperture/Flash-power level determine how the flash will show up.  Using E-TTL, the flash power is determined by the camera.  So there are three sets of decisions to be made - how much ambient you want to see in your flash picture, how much flash do you want to see relative to the ambient, and if the subject is moving, where do you want the flash to go off (relative to the motion streak).  

Let's say you're in a semi-dark room, and a "proper" ambient exposure would be ISO 100/f 5.6/ 1/20sec at 24mm.  However, you want the flash to be more powerful than the ambient exposure by 1 stop.  So you reduce the settings for the ambient exposure to ISO 100, f/8, 1/20 sec.   Now if the flash is in E-TTL mode, it will make a preflash and determine the power levels it needs AS IF the light from the flash is the main light.  So far so good.  Now if your subject was moving, the 1/20 sec exposure could cause some blurring (which is fine, you're going for that effect).  As Robin pointed out, the decision between first-curtain sync and second-curtain sync is about where you want the flash image to appear relative to the blur.  If you shoot in normal mode, the flash will fire as soon as the shutter is fully open.  Then the shutter will continue to be open, building up the ambient exposue.  After 1/20 sec, the second curtain will move, closing the shutter.  In the image, you'll see the flash image at the beginning of the blur.  

Now if you change the settings to second-curtain sync, the flash holds off firing until just before the second curtain starts to close, with the result that the image will have a blur and a sharp (flash) image at the end of the blur.  Since we are conditioned to expect the blur to be "behind" the main subject (assuming the subject is moving forward), we need to use the second curtain sync to deliver that impression.  However, if the subject is stationary, then first or second curtain sync won't matter.


----------



## daggah (Mar 2, 2013)

I stand corrected, thank you.

I guess in the situation I'm talking about, rear curtain sync is actually worse because it might give people more time to blink from the pre-flash if you're using TTL.


----------



## cynicaster (Mar 2, 2013)

Great info in this thread. 

OP, I think the most important first step in getting the most out of your flash is to understand the ambient/flash "2 different exposures in one frame" concept.  In most situations (like shooting people at parties) the most counterproductive mindset you can have is to think about the entire scene in front of you as one big frame that the flash is trying to illuminate.  Why?  Because your camera doesn't agree with you, for starters; if you're using E-TTL, the camera is identifying a "subject" and exposing that, without caring about the background.

I'd like to echo the earlier recommendation to NEVER point the flash directly at people--your pictures will come out looking like they were taken with the $100 pocket cam that came free with the purchase of your computer printer (ok, I'm exaggerating a bit).  

Another thing with bounce flash is you have to pay attention to the colors of the walls and ceilings that you use to bounce.  I remember when I got my first external flash, I was like "bounce flash... HELL YEAH!" and went nuts with it at this family gathering at my parents' house.  I was horrified when I started inspecting my results on the computer because every photo had a hideous orange cast on it due to the orange paint that was on the walls in that room.  Lesson learned!

@daggah--your mixup on shutters notwithstanding, that's a great photo you posted.  Nice work.


----------



## premortho (Mar 2, 2013)

I read this whole post thinking I could add something after 67 years of experience.  So, now that I have you all either smiling, or laughing...Here's how I did pics like ye two ladies in a barroom.   4X5 Speed Graphic.  Focus using "focus-spot" attachment on Kalart rangefinder. ASA 100 film.  12 feet. f22. Sylvania Press 25 flashbulb. 1/100th second.  Works every time.  If you want more ambient light, shoot at 1/50th or 1/25, f32orf45.  Now I'll shut up.


----------



## Village Idiot (Mar 4, 2013)

I would use high enough ISO that your flash doesn't have to work as hard but you're also not getting ambient bleed unless you're using a color gel on your flash. Makes your batteries last longer.


----------

