Flash Photography, how to get the best out of it?

I have a Canon digital rebel, Sunpak 5000af Zoom Flash, Tamron SP
AF28-75, 2.8 Lens.

How do I go about taking good indoor flash pictures this Christmas? In
the past I've always been disappointed with how they come out. I've
tried a variety of settings, but I guess not the correct one.

What settings on the camera will give the best? AV, TV, Automatic White
Balance?

I have a Canon digital rebel, Sunpak 5000af Zoom Flash, Tamron SP AF28-75,
2.8 Lens.

How do I go about taking good indoor flash pictures this Christmas? In the
past I've always been disappointed with how they come out. I've tried a
variety of settings, but I guess not the correct one.

What settings on the camera will give the best? AV, TV, Automatic White
Balance?

You have a lot of questions that aren't easily answered in one message.
I'll try some basics, but you might consider googling for more reading
material, or visiting your library.

The first problem with a flash is that shooting a harsh light right along
the axis of the lens is rarely flattering - you end up with flat, washed-out
subjects, unflattering reflections, red-eye, and harsh shadows. One way to
both alter the direction of the light and to diffuse the light is to bounce
the flash up at the ceiling. With just a little practice, you'll be able to
pick an angle corresponding to ceiling height and layout with ease.

But, don't stop there - you have a swivel head as well, so use that to
your advantage! Try tilting and swiveling the flash so that it's actually
pointed to the upper corner of a room behind and to the side of you - not
only do you get even better diffusion, the directionality of the light is
now at an angle to your subject, which will keep them from looking "flat".
Experiment a little bit, you'll get the hang of it.

You do lose a lot of intensity that way, so you may have to increase your
ISO a little bit - unless it's an awfully big room or you're using fairly
small apertures, ISO 400 is usually sufficient.

You would think that Av mode would work the best - but in that mode, your
camera will try to use the flash as fill, not as primary, and you can end up
with some long shutter speeds. (The XT lets you overcome that, but not the
DR). So, consider putting your camera into manual mode - choose 1/200th as
the shutter speed, set your aperture (4.0 or 5.6 wouldn't be a bad choice),
and let the E-TTL magic take care of the flash intensity. I find that I
usually get a slightly better color balance with an external flash if the
white balance is set to auto, not flash.

steve

Is this Sunpak model specifically made for digital cameras?

"Steve Wolfe" wrote in message
...
I have a Canon digital rebel, Sunpak 5000af Zoom Flash, Tamron SP
AF28-75, 2.8 Lens.

How do I go about taking good indoor flash pictures this Christmas? In
the past I've always been disappointed with how they come out. I've tried
a variety of settings, but I guess not the correct one.

What settings on the camera will give the best? AV, TV, Automatic White
Balance?

You have a lot of questions that aren't easily answered in one message.
I'll try some basics, but you might consider googling for more reading
material, or visiting your library.

The first problem with a flash is that shooting a harsh light right along
the axis of the lens is rarely flattering - you end up with flat,
washed-out subjects, unflattering reflections, red-eye, and harsh shadows.
One way to both alter the direction of the light and to diffuse the light
is to bounce the flash up at the ceiling. With just a little practice,
you'll be able to pick an angle corresponding to ceiling height and layout
with ease.

But, don't stop there - you have a swivel head as well, so use that to
your advantage! Try tilting and swiveling the flash so that it's actually
pointed to the upper corner of a room behind and to the side of you - not
only do you get even better diffusion, the directionality of the light is
now at an angle to your subject, which will keep them from looking "flat".
Experiment a little bit, you'll get the hang of it.

You do lose a lot of intensity that way, so you may have to increase your
ISO a little bit - unless it's an awfully big room or you're using fairly
small apertures, ISO 400 is usually sufficient.

You would think that Av mode would work the best - but in that mode, your
camera will try to use the flash as fill, not as primary, and you can end
up with some long shutter speeds. (The XT lets you overcome that, but not
the DR). So, consider putting your camera into manual mode - choose
1/200th as the shutter speed, set your aperture (4.0 or 5.6 wouldn't be a
bad choice), and let the E-TTL magic take care of the flash intensity. I
find that I usually get a slightly better color balance with an external
flash if the white balance is set to auto, not flash.

steve

Steve,

You wrote:

"You would think that Av mode would work the best ... you can end up with
some long shutter speeds. (The XT lets you overcome that..."

Can you give us XT owners the "how to" on this? I like the fill flash
effect in Av mode but I DO get some slow shutter speeds in low natural
lighting (when the scene is poorly lit). What can I do with my XT to
"overcome" this?

John

wrote:
Is this Sunpak model specifically made for digital cameras?

No, I originally purchased it for my Canon film camera. Are there
specific ones for digital cameras?

Ken wrote:
wrote:

Is this Sunpak model specifically made for digital cameras?

No, I originally purchased it for my Canon film camera. Are there
specific ones for digital cameras?

Not really. I think the question should have been whether your flash
was a "dedicated" unit designed for your specific model of camera.

If it's made to interact with an EOS film camera, it SHOULD work the
same with a digital EOS. (I say, SHOULD work, for those with selective
reading problems... there are always exceptions, particularly with
third-party hardware).


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"You would think that Av mode would work the best ... you can end up with
some long shutter speeds. (The XT lets you overcome that..."

Can you give us XT owners the "how to" on this? I like the fill flash
effect in Av mode but I DO get some slow shutter speeds in low natural
lighting (when the scene is poorly lit). What can I do with my XT to
"overcome" this?

In the menu, go to "custom functions", and there's one for the shutter
sync speed in Av mode. The two options are "auto" and 1/200 - set it to
1/200. Of course, if you do want your flash to be just fill, then that's
probably not going to work for you unless you have an ISO/aperture that can
properly expose the background at 1/200.

steve

"Steve Wolfe" wrote in message
...
"You would think that Av mode would work the best ... you can end up with
some long shutter speeds. (The XT lets you overcome that..."

Can you give us XT owners the "how to" on this? I like the fill flash
effect in Av mode but I DO get some slow shutter speeds in low natural
lighting (when the scene is poorly lit). What can I do with my XT to
"overcome" this?

In the menu, go to "custom functions", and there's one for the shutter
sync speed in Av mode. The two options are "auto" and 1/200 - set it to
1/200. Of course, if you do want your flash to be just fill, then that's
probably not going to work for you unless you have an ISO/aperture that
can properly expose the background at 1/200.

steve


Great, thanks for the info. I'll play with it and see.

John

"Ken" wrote in message
news:OF%qf.8726$Ou3.3107@dukeread09...
I have a Canon digital rebel, Sunpak 5000af Zoom Flash, Tamron SP AF28-75,
2.8 Lens.

How do I go about taking good indoor flash pictures this Christmas? In the
past I've always been disappointed with how they come out. I've tried a
variety of settings, but I guess not the correct one.

What settings on the camera will give the best? AV, TV, Automatic White
Balance?

Disappointed why? Please identify the problem or show us the problem. Here
are some flash related problems I can think of.

overexposed, or overexposed in part of the photo
underexposed
subject that is close to the camera is surrounded with background that is
too dark
red eyes
glares and reflections
flat look due to frontal light (most people would not complain if this is
the only problem)
camera shake
incorrect white balance
shadows too conspicous

Each problem may require a different solution.

Is your flash a dedicated one to the Canon ETTL II system? If not,
you cannot expect it to work properly with a digital Rebel.
Furthermore, according to what I have read on the web, if the firing
voltage of your flash is over 6 v you are likely to damage the
internal mechanism of the camera, and the effect is cumulative! The
ETTL II system built into the digital Rebel uses a preflash to
evaluate the exposure needed, and then fires the picture-taking flash.
If your flash is not designed to be compatible with this system, you
will not get properly exposed results. You cannot use the built in
flash to trigger a slave flash for the same reason: the slave will
fire on the builtin's pre flash (except possibly for one of the high
end Canon flashes - I don't remember what I've read about this).

This is an unfortunate extra expense that comes with the
digital Rebel. I also have a perfectly good flash which gave
excellent reults with a non digital Rebel and I am now buying a new
flash compatible with the 350D.

Bob


On Sat, 24 Dec 2005 01:08:21 GMT, "John Stewart" wrote:


"Steve Wolfe" wrote in message
...
I have a Canon digital rebel, Sunpak 5000af Zoom Flash, Tamron SP
AF28-75, 2.8 Lens.

How do I go about taking good indoor flash pictures this Christmas? In
the past I've always been disappointed with how they come out. I've tried
a variety of settings, but I guess not the correct one.

What settings on the camera will give the best? AV, TV, Automatic White
Balance?

You have a lot of questions that aren't easily answered in one message.
I'll try some basics, but you might consider googling for more reading
material, or visiting your library.

The first problem with a flash is that shooting a harsh light right along
the axis of the lens is rarely flattering - you end up with flat,
washed-out subjects, unflattering reflections, red-eye, and harsh shadows.
One way to both alter the direction of the light and to diffuse the light
is to bounce the flash up at the ceiling. With just a little practice,
you'll be able to pick an angle corresponding to ceiling height and layout
with ease.

But, don't stop there - you have a swivel head as well, so use that to
your advantage! Try tilting and swiveling the flash so that it's actually
pointed to the upper corner of a room behind and to the side of you - not
only do you get even better diffusion, the directionality of the light is
now at an angle to your subject, which will keep them from looking "flat".
Experiment a little bit, you'll get the hang of it.

You do lose a lot of intensity that way, so you may have to increase your
ISO a little bit - unless it's an awfully big room or you're using fairly
small apertures, ISO 400 is usually sufficient.

You would think that Av mode would work the best - but in that mode, your
camera will try to use the flash as fill, not as primary, and you can end
up with some long shutter speeds. (The XT lets you overcome that, but not
the DR). So, consider putting your camera into manual mode - choose
1/200th as the shutter speed, set your aperture (4.0 or 5.6 wouldn't be a
bad choice), and let the E-TTL magic take care of the flash intensity. I
find that I usually get a slightly better color balance with an external
flash if the white balance is set to auto, not flash.

steve

Steve,

You wrote:

"You would think that Av mode would work the best ... you can end up with
some long shutter speeds. (The XT lets you overcome that..."

Can you give us XT owners the "how to" on this? I like the fill flash
effect in Av mode but I DO get some slow shutter speeds in low natural
lighting (when the scene is poorly lit). What can I do with my XT to
"overcome" this?

John