My wife sold my soul (for free), help me get it back!

[dtornabene1]

Great idea with the projector screen. I just might use that myself for projects. You can buy one online for less than 200 bucks and they are far larger than photography refectors.

See, we learn, every day.

- Nick

 

[Tom3]

yes, it was very good; a bit tricky to position as it is flat so I had to do a bunch of test shots; I guess an umbrella would have been easier as it looks more focused (I never used one, so I can only guess).

I'm just left puzzled as to why the lighting was off on some shots. The remote flash worked surprisingly well, I expected it to not fire sometimes, etc but that did not happen.

 

[GeneralBenson]

I would wager that you were shooting TTL flash ro something like that. In situations like this, it's infinitely better to shoot manual flash, and for that matter, manual everything. Once you get you exposure right, everything stays constant. Versus TTL/Aperture mode, every time a kid has a different color shirt, things start changing. I would wager that the shots that were way off were with kids wearing extremely dark or light outfits. That's my guess at least. With manual, the false meter readings won't change the exposure.

 

[Tom3]

You are perfectly right. The flash intensity was different from shot to shot
The white t-shirts / black skin were the worst combo.

Is there a recipe to determine flash strength besides doing a lot of test shots?

 

[GeneralBenson]

You would ideally get a flash exposure from a grey card. But mostly, just taking a few test shots, and seeing what is accurate for most people is going to be fine, knowing that the meter will say differently when you get black or white, but just ignore the meter.