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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? |
#2
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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? 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 |
#3
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Flash Photography, how to get the best out of it?
Is this Sunpak model specifically made for digital cameras?
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#4
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Flash Photography, how to get the best out of it?
"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 |
#5
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Flash Photography, how to get the best out of it?
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#6
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Flash Photography, how to get the best out of it?
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). --- avast! Antivirus: Outbound message clean. Virus Database (VPS): 0551-5, 12/23/2005 Tested on: 12/23/2005 9:22:30 PM avast! - copyright (c) 1988-2005 ALWIL Software. http://www.avast.com |
#7
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Flash Photography, how to get the best out of it?
"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 |
#8
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Flash Photography, how to get the best out of it?
"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 |
#9
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Flash Photography, how to get the best out of it?
"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. |
#10
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Flash Photography, how to get the best out of it?
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 |
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