Photos with Flash

Mav, I love your shots of the little one. How do you do it? Pictures of my kids usually come out really crappy, especially inside. I'm not very comfortable with my flash yet. I use a 430 EX. I suck too much to justify the expense of the 580.
You can't be afraid to turn your flash around and bounce it off a wall or ceiling or something similar. Homemade diffusers are just fine but if you are shooting in a relatively small space there are diffusers all around you in walls and ceilings.
 
I agree. Can't figure out why no inputs on the 430EX. It's design flaws like that that are really frustrating when you buy expensive equipment. It's like, come on, don't these guys think about this stuff when they design it?

sure they think of it..The 580 comes with inputs. They would rather you spend another 200 bucks. There are cheap alternatives that allow you to add PC inputs:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/89979-REG/Hama_HA_6951_Hot_Shoe_Adapter_1.html

Personally, I would never pass up on a shot just becasue I didn't want to use the built-in flash. It's not the best, but it works.
 
I'm not saying I would pass up a shot if all I had was built-in flash either, I'm just saying that the built-in flash is far inferior to an external flash.
 
I'm not good at all when it comes to using flash. I always get confused on how I should set my WB. Should I set it to Flash, or ambient light? Also, if the wall and ceiling is not neutral colored, would I get color cast if I bounce off?

Edit: Mav, those pics. came out great!
 
Thanks so much for the tips, Mav! My ceiling are very high in my living room so I can't bounce off of it anyway. I've tried turning the flash around backward but it doesn't seem to help...maybe my flash doesn't have enough power. Usually when I take pictures of the kids I take them outside or have them sit in front of the back door (it's a sliding door, facing west so in the afternoon lots of light comes through). I bought a reflector set a few months ago, I should try using it more, bouncing the flash off of it.

I may be getting too technical here but, is the angle of the flash important when bouncing? What I mean is, should I avoid bouncing at a 90 degree angle or does it not matter because the light is just bouncing and going all over anyway? It seems that if I use a 90 degree angle, the light would fall behind the subject. Of course, I know next to nothing about light. I suppose that could be my biggest problem with photography.

I agree about learning to use the flash. It's not easy though.
 
Thanks so much for the tips, Mav! My ceiling are very high in my living room so I can't bounce off of it anyway. I've tried turning the flash around backward but it doesn't seem to help...maybe my flash doesn't have enough power. Usually when I take pictures of the kids I take them outside or have them sit in front of the back door (it's a sliding door, facing west so in the afternoon lots of light comes through). I bought a reflector set a few months ago, I should try using it more, bouncing the flash off of it.
If you post (or PM me) some samples with complete EXIF info, I might be able to help figure out what's going on.

I may be getting too technical here but, is the angle of the flash important when bouncing? What I mean is, should I avoid bouncing at a 90 degree angle or does it not matter because the light is just bouncing and going all over anyway? It seems that if I use a 90 degree angle, the light would fall behind the subject. Of course, I know next to nothing about light. I suppose that could be my biggest problem with photography.
Flahses usually have pretty wide patterns so that when you fire it off, light is going all over the place. When a flash goes off and you're looking at it from the side, you still see pretty intense amounts of light. But it sounds like you just might not be able to get very good bounce flashing where you are. It could be camera setting related though, which is why it'd be helpful to see some sample images. If you can't get good results via bounce flashing on the camera, you might need to look into some off-camera lighting. A lot of people find The Strobist pretty helpful as far as that goes.

I agree about learning to use the flash. It's not easy though.
It's definitely not. :wink:
 
That's putting it mildly. Until I bought my D80, I never used the built-in flash. I went through three cameras without even knowing if it worked! Now, with the D80, I use it ONLY as the commander in a multiple-flash configuration.

We are 100% on the same page. I use a Nikon D200 and have gone as high as 6 strobes to getthe picture I wanted. The on camera flash makes a good commander with the D200... not sure if it is the same on the D80.

On camera flash is NOT very good under the best of circumstances!
 
Mav - you're a plethora of knowledge! I'm going to play with the settings on my d80 to see if I can achieve some of the same affects in your beautiful daughter's portraits. Thanks!
 
My ceiling are very high in my living room so I can't bounce off of it anyway. I've tried turning the flash around backward but it doesn't seem to help...maybe my flash doesn't have enough power.

A ceiling or wall are not the only thing you can bounce a flash off of... how about bouncing it off a reflector ON the flash?

The Nikon SB-800 has one built-in and works wonders. Another alternative is something called A BETTER BOUNCE CARD. Try it out, you will see a major positive difference.
 

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