Flash (aaaaahhh) question 600ex-rt

ElDude

ElDude

ElDude

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Ello! Just a quickie as my break in work is about to finish.

I'm doing a band shoot again tonight but they want some shots taken before the event for a change. I have no experience with this flash as I was planning to practice this week, but due to a death in the family on Monday things have gone a bit pear shaped.

Skimming thought the PDF of the manual I have on this here iPad would I be correct in assuming that the high speed sync option is best for me with aperture priority for fill flash use for the band's portrait shot?

Any other tips welcome as I'll only have about 30 minutes to catch up with this thread before leaving at 6pm.

Ta in advance!
 
I thought gig events are poorly lit, so how would you be able to use HSS as that is to overpower strong lighting (backlight sun for example) to act as a fill flash. You are best off exposing for the ambient light at a hand holdable shutter speed (depending on the glass you are using) via ISO manipulation, then using iTTe to fill your subjects. You won't have any grain on the people due to the flash properly exposing them, regardless of the ISO value you've chosen.
 
This is before the gig. I might not have to use it if the photo is outside, but even pre-gig the pub is dark as there is atmospheric (cheap landlord :p) lighting.

Just quickly scanning the manual I can't see a mention of iTTe? So far it's just said to set it on ETTL and the wanted use seems to be set from the 4 buttons afterwards.
 
Start with:-

Manual - ISO 800
Shutter speed 1/125
Aperture - (widest)

Adjust to following scenarios -

Too dark - reason - dark background, dark ceiling, lights not bouncing round.

Solution - bump up ISO to 1600 up to 6400
Drop shutter speed to 1/60th

Too bright - either their backlighting is so strong that you are getting blinded with ISO 800.

Lower ISO to 100 to 400.
Increase shutter speed to 1/200th
Aperture (drop to F/2.8)

You can "cheat" a bit by shooting in Av Mode with a fill flash. The camera does a pretty good job of giving a correctly exposed photo, makes it easier if you have not done it before, especially if the back lighting is going crazy from colour spot light one second to floodlight (white light) the next. It happened in my last wedding, live band had some lighting which did just that. I was happy shooting ISO800-1250 one minute, but the ending of the song the colour lights changed to massive white flood lights that blinded not only me but the camera too, so the filled flash wasn't anything as it was being overpowered by all the floodlight and the photos was way exposed until I turn the ISO down again.

You can also pull up the little white card (not having that plastic diffuser out though, that is not for reflecting, it is for focal length of the flash) and bounce some light forward.

Turn on High Speed sync if you want higher shutter speed, but I think 1/200th is generally fast enough for bands. 1/500th is for things like Boxing. It would be quite exceptional to want any faster (because it is too much light. I doubt you will need this kind of shutter speed.

You can do second curtain sync, very easy to do on the 600EX-RT, just drop the shutter speed to say 1/40th for greater effect.

With the ISO bumped up you are also saving batteries as the flash is only a fill light, a set of AA could easily last the entire shoot.

Side note, not sure how your band will react to this, the IR light assist, I am guessing the band won't care if they let you to use flash but if can use flash then I assume you can use IR Assist, then remember if you shoot in continuing focus then the IR Assist won't come on. You need to be in One Shot Focus.
 
ElDude said:
This is before the gig. I might not have to use it if the photo is outside, but even pre-gig the pub is dark as there is atmospheric (cheap landlord :p) lighting.

Just quickly scanning the manual I can't see a mention of iTTe? So far it's just said to set it on ETTL and the wanted use seems to be set from the 4 buttons afterwards.
Click to expand...

Sorry yeah, ETTL is canons version iTTL is nikons!
 
Raymond Lin said:
Start with:-

Manual - ISO 800
Shutter speed 1/125
Aperture - (widest)

Adjust to following scenarios -

Too dark - reason - dark background, dark ceiling, lights not bouncing round.

Solution - bump up ISO to 1600 up to 6400
Drop shutter speed to 1/60th

Too bright - either their backlighting is so strong that you are getting blinded with ISO 800.

Lower ISO to 100 to 400.
Increase shutter speed to 1/200th
Aperture (drop to F/2.8)

You can "cheat" a bit by shooting in Av Mode with a fill flash. The camera does a pretty good job of giving a correctly exposed photo, makes it easier if you have not done it before, especially if the back lighting is going crazy from colour spot light one second to floodlight (white light) the next. It happened in my last wedding, live band had some lighting which did just that. I was happy shooting ISO800-1250 one minute, but the ending of the song the colour lights changed to massive white flood lights that blinded not only me but the camera too, so the filled flash wasn't anything as it was being overpowered by all the floodlight and the photos was way exposed until I turn the ISO down again.

You can also pull up the little white card (not having that plastic diffuser out though, that is not for reflecting, it is for focal length of the flash) and bounce some light forward.

Turn on High Speed sync if you want higher shutter speed, but I think 1/200th is generally fast enough for bands. 1/500th is for things like Boxing. It would be quite exceptional to want any faster (because it is too much light. I doubt you will need this kind of shutter speed.

You can do second curtain sync, very easy to do on the 600EX-RT, just drop the shutter speed to say 1/40th for greater effect.

With the ISO bumped up you are also saving batteries as the flash is only a fill light, a set of AA could easily last the entire shoot.

Side note, not sure how your band will react to this, the IR light assist, I am guessing the band won't care if they let you to use flash but if can use flash then I assume you can use IR Assist, then remember if you shoot in continuing focus then the IR Assist won't come on. You need to be in One Shot Focus.
Click to expand...

When you say manual, are you referring to the camera or the flash, or are you saying set both to that, or the flash to ETTL and the camera at manual? :D

There's loads of configurations. My brain is melting :D

I tried a test shot in my bedroom the other day, using the AF assist in a dark room focusing on the xbox360 which is black. It did a reasonable job considering but was far too over exposed. Judging by that, if I was to focus on faces as I normally do, or subjects of interest then this could actually do a decent job on ETTL with AV. I normally use AV for gigs as it's faster, but for a portrait I think I'd need to tinker a bit. It's just annoying that this weeks events have thrown a major spanner in the works, as this photo is for a charity calendar and I'd rather not mess them about pre gig as they've got enough to do setting up!

I'll definitely be using the assist during the gig. I want to see if I can drop the ISO to under 5000 for a change. It's rare at these gigs that I've had the chance. I think when lights are up it's fine normally but once lights are out and people are bouncing past all the time, you generally get limited light and at best I'll use 3200.
 
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Manual in camera. ETTL for flash.

Your subject distance is constantly changing, it would be quite tricky to adjust flash power as fill light on the fly for every photo.
 
Ah ha. That's what I was thinking. It's a very small gig and they'll be about 10ft in front of me. Not sure what they have in mind for the portrait photo, but at best if the pub is empty when I get there in 90 minutes (eek!) I may have time to play about.

It's a little bit stressful as I like to prepare before the gig starts and take some test shots. As it is with this, I'll literally be walking in, getting the camera out and taking a photo! I'll have to make them wait a few minutes while I try not to muck it all up :D

Oh, on a side note, what do you use to clean your 35L? I've noticed I'm picking up a lot of muck on the lens after a couple of gigs. It seems this has now transfered to my lens pens and microfibre cloth too, rendering them useless!

Thanks for the help, by the way :)
 
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Sweet. These setting seem perfect. Cheers Ray :)

Light is dropping slowly but I'll step up the ISO in a bit :)

No idea what I'm processing them on though :(
 
I have a filter on my 35L, so I just clean it with micro fibre.

Keep your shutter speed up above 1/125 to minimise movement blur (unless that is your intention) so just bump your ISO up for ambient light.
 
It all seemed to go well. I changed ISO to 100 for a few shots later, and it worked well.

Now I just need a new main drive. Glad I backed up my catalogue 2 days ago, it's not even detecting a bootable drive!
 
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