Yesterday's wedding shoot.

ethan

ethan

ethan

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A bit trial by fire. Loads of kids rushing around. Guests reluctant to spend any time outside due to the cold. A number of armchair photography critics and only two rooms in which to do a shoot mainly in the dark. A number of technical difficulties, a bit of flash blur and a little lack of experience on my part.

Can anybody explain why I was still getting a number of blurred images at 500th of a second at f2.8- etc on a dance floor using a Godox v60 II from ten feet away?
 
ethan said:
A bit trial by fire. Loads of kids rushing around. Guests reluctant to spend any time outside due to the cold. A number of armchair photography critics and only two rooms in which to do a shoot mainly in the dark. A number of technical difficulties, a bit of flash blur and a little lack of experience on my part.

Can anybody explain why I was still getting a number of blurred images at 500th of a second on a dance floor using a Godox v60 II from ten feet away?
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You don’t need 500th a second...light is a blink of an eye so to speak.

1/160th, F/1.4 (or 2.8), then iso 1600 in M model with ETTL will get you sharp images and everything frozen in time.

1/500th will have no atmosphere and unless you have high speed sync turned on, half the image will be black due to the curtain.
 
Raymond Lin said:
You don’t need 500th a second...light is a blink of an eye so to speak.

1/160th, F/1.4 (or 2.8), then iso 1600 in M model with ETTL will get you sharp images and everything frozen in time.

1/500th will have no atmosphere and unless you have high speed sync turned on, half the image will be black due to the curtain.
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ETTL being Evaluative TTL flash rather the exposure to the left?
 
Expose for the environment you want, flash to freeze the action. When I was shooting nightclubs I'd drop down as low as 1/3 shutter f4 to get the drag of the venue lighting to add atmosphere with the close flash to capture the faces. Last wedding I shot my first dance photos were 1/80 f6.3 because of the wide angle lens used (12-24mm). First time playing with off camera flash (ETTL) and was very happy with the result.
 
Raymond Lin said:
You don’t need 500th a second...light is a blink of an eye so to speak.

1/160th, F/1.4 (or 2.8), then iso 1600 in M model with ETTL will get you sharp images and everything frozen in time.

1/500th will have no atmosphere and unless you have high speed sync turned on, half the image will be black due to the curtain.
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I can't remember if it was here or tp that I first read this advice but it made getting results at parties are a breeze!
 
I tend to keep the Shutter Speed the same, aperture the same but change the ISO to suit the amount of ambient light in the room.

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This last one has an off camera flash, same theory (except now flash is on full manual)

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ethan said:
I'll remember that. Fantastic photos. I have a lot to learn.
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Things to note

1 - Aperture controls Flash power

If your flash power is set to manual and you don't touch any other settings, making the aperture bigger (smaller number) will increase the look of the flash effect to the photo.

2 - Shutter Speed for Ambient light

3 - ISO affects both.

So you ask yourself, what's wrong with this photo? Then deduct which settings you want to change.

You need to know that quickly especially when you are shooting off camera flash, it is 1 setting and when you are walking around the room and some guests tap you on the shoulder and ask for a photo, you need to change it to what it works in that room and then put it back how it is.
 
I found I was getting about a stop and a half too much flash with ittl/ettl set to highlight weighted so I tried adjusting it by increasing the shutter. The camera was set to auto iso. It was quite frantic trying to adjust appropriately amidst the action. Tbh I might have been better using the Fuji as I'm used to manual flash on that as opposed to the D750. I only had the D750 for a few days so really didn't have all that much time to familiarise myself with it.
 
ethan said:
I found I was getting about a stop and a half too much flash with ittl/ettl set to highlight weighted so I tried adjusting it by increasing the shutter. The camera was set to auto iso. It was quite frantic trying to adjust appropriately amidst the action. Tbh I might have been better using the Fuji as I'm used to manual flash on that as opposed to the D750. I only had the D750 for a few days so really didn't have all that much time to familiarise myself with it.
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If you are in a bind, Av mode, E-TTL. That works most of the time. Just less control.

Just set your ISO to get ambient light.
 
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As above, the thing to remember is the aperture, exposure and ISO should be sufficient to get the background exposed, while the flash will freeze the action/people.
Since the flash will properly expose the subject, high ISO tends to look very clean and if need be the background can have some additional de-noising.

Aperture wants to be wide enough to have sufficient DoF for the subject. The downside is a narrower aperture will mean the flash has to increase power, and you will need a higher ISO to retain background. You just have to get used to making this kind of balance.


Auto-ISO is great when not using a flash. When using a flash you need to be careful otherwise you wont have control over the background
 
Lovely shots Raymond especially the woman in white/orange background. Had my first go at a wedding using a speedlite, with so much going on it was definitely lively.

Learned a couple of things from this thread already :).
 
Here's an example from one of my recent ones. Both shot on a 5D3, 1/80, ISO3200, manual mode, on camera flash triggering off camera flash ETTL

Left photo using a 24mm lens at f6.3, right using 35mm lens at f2.8. Can see the difference in the brightness of the direct flash just from the difference in aperture and how the atmosphere of the room changes.

photo_compare.jpg
 
iamtheoneneo said:
https://neilvn.com/tangents/flash-photography-techniques/off-camera-flash/
His book by the way (Direction and Quality of Light) is pretty much an essential read imo.
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Plenty of good advice. I'll be sure to read and purchase it. I was somewhat mystified by the amount of conflicting advice from photographers on the Internet which didn't help. There was someone swearing by auto iso because it frees up time to concentrate on everything else Tbh I' ve had better success switching to manual and adjusting accordingly (at previous events) .
 
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ethan said:
Plenty of good advice. I'll be sure to read and purchase it. I was somewhat mystified by the amount of conflicting advice from photographers on the Internet which didn't help. There was someone swearing by auto iso because it frees up time to concentrate on everything else Tbh I' ve had better success switching to manual and adjusting accordingly (at previous events) .
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The reason I set iso manually with flash is because the room is dark, and everything is artificial light so it’s fixed. Your ISO is to get the ambient light so just keep bumping it up until you can see some colours, then let ETTL to light your subject correctly.

ISO for background, ETTL for foreground.
 
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