altar shots issue

[guitarkid]

more than half my altar shots of the bride and groom turn out underlit with the reddish hue, as if there was no flash. and yet...i'm shooting with a 30D and 580 flash. luckily i shoot in raw, i can correct most of the shots in CS2. BUT, i don't get it. from what i remember, the iso is at 400, 1/60, 5.6, and i'm at around 10 feet from them. i don't get it.

usually when i'm shooting the reception it's at iso 800 and sometimes yes, even 1000 so i can get 1/30 with a 5.6

i do white balancing adjustment by usually clicking on the bride's dress or priest's robe in CS2. then adjust the hue / saturation until it looks good. by the way, how long do you spend editing 800 RAW files? just curious if you spend a lot of time with the histograms.

 

[Big Mike]

Can you post an example? What mode are you shooting in?

It's rather common for people to find that their camera will slightly underexpose with a Canon flash. (This is probably because the engineers wanted to keep us from blowing the highlights.) So they will dial in some FEC and are happy with that.

A reddish hue could be caused by an incorrectly set WB...or it could come from the ambient light in the church....we will have to see.

 

[W.Smith]

My knee-jerk reaction would be to suspect the flash didn't fire at full power. Maybe it was too soon after the previous exposure-with-full-flash?
But hey, it could be a few other things too I suppose.
An actual photo posted here might shed more light on the subject . . .

 

[Alex_B]

by the way, how long do you spend editing 800 RAW files? just curious if you spend a lot of time with the histograms.

In CS2 it would take ages probably. But with a proper RAW converter this can be done much faster. In the RAW converter I correct lens distortions, CA, crop, sharpen, do white balance, reduce ISO noise, stamp out dust marks and do minor corrections to exposure ... I don't play much with curves.

I only use CS2 when more complicated manipulations are required because I mucked up the shot.

 

[guitarkid]

i will post a before and after. i do everything now in CS2 bridge. i'm still learning it and tool around with the settings until i see what i like. as far as the flash not recycling, i'm only taking 1 shot every 5 to 10 seconds with fresh batteries and i shoot on nothing but manual. i don't use any custom settings or modes. i don't believe in them. i can post some shots with no processing before and after.

steve