Flash diffusers in Church!?

cokebottles · 14 Oct 2012 at 23:14

Ok, I've got my first photography "job" (unpaid) penciled in for mid Novemeber.

Its the Christening of some friends of a friend's child. They were not going to hire a tog, and they were happy to take up my offer of free photos.

I know I will at least be covering the Christening itself at the church and I am going to confirm whether I will be wanted at the reception or not.

I should be able to get to the church before the event on a weekend to fire off some test frames, and perhaps see if I can ask someone about the use of flash.

My kit will be the 24-70mm F2.8 L, 50mm F1.8 and also a 600EX speedlight. I will probably also have a FF camera of some kind by then also, if not ill be with my 450D. Ive also just bought a Gary Fong lightshpere copy on ebay for a few quid as a starting point with regards to diffusers

In these environments, if I was allowed to use flash - is that generally the best thing to do, and if so what is recommended in terms of diffuser?

Thanks for any help you can offer. I will definitely be posting pics from the day when Im done.

Chris

cokebottles · 14 Oct 2012 at 23:49

Understood. I will broach the relevant parties at the church.

Im worried about the shutter speed. Im thinking I need 1/200 to freeze the baby splashing around. Im am far from being experience enough to guess exposures but I would say 1/200 @ 2.8 is going to need something beyond the capabilities of my 450D!

My room is quite dimly lit tonight, and might pose as a worst case scenario but Im needing 1/10 F2.8 @ ISO 400 to expose. Thats about 4 stops away from 1/16O F2.8 ISO 400 so, if Im working this out correctly that would mean if I wanted at least 1/160 at F2.8 I would need ISO 6400 (if my rooms lighting conditions is representative).

Side note: Ray how many stops better ISO are you finding the 5D3 over the 5D2?

cokebottles · 14 Oct 2012 at 23:56

Ive been leaning towards going with the 5D2 purely on budget and not running-before-I-can walk. I hate looking at bloody ISO samples on Dpreview because I know they are not really representative of real life lighting always.

From what you're saying I can infer you dont find 6400 usable on a 5D2?

cokebottles · 15 Oct 2012 at 17:23

Thanks Ray. Im in the process of trying to source a 5D mark 2 from a friend of a friend this week to try my 24-70 and 600EX on to see what I can achieve in terms of AF and ISO noise performance.