Night Christmas Portrait

[JerryPH]

One question, does the bounced umbrella vs shoot through just spread the light more?

It is brighter over a larger area, but a little harsher too. Diminished apparent size of the light is the reason for that.

I just didn't really know the difference was that much.

One is white and "see-though" a bit. That is shoot through. One is white or white/silver on the underside and black on the outside. That's the bounce umbrella. The number of people, the distance from umbrella to subject and the kind/power of the lighting in the stand with the umbrella all pretty much decides which one to use under any given circumstance.

The tourists scare me more than the locals ever could :lmao:

The tourists are the ones I was speaking of with the (car) horns and are mean as hell... lol

 

[Lyncca]

One is white and "see-though" a bit. That is shoot through. One is white or white/silver on the underside and black on the outside. That's the bounce umbrella. The number of people, the distance from umbrella to subject and the kind/power of the lighting in the stand with the umbrella all pretty much decides which one to use under any given circumstance.

I knew the difference in what they were, just not that there was much difference in what they did.

[whine]
*sigh* More reading to do. You know, I used to actually read FICTION books now and then!

I swear, if I *ever* really master all this... hell, before then... the next person that says something to me like "I wish I had a camera like that so I could take great pictures." is going to get knocked upside the head with my big pretty camera (and this one is titanium).
[/whine]

The tourists are the ones I was speaking of with the (car) horns and are mean as hell... lol

LOL.

 

[andrew99]

Sure you do...meter the background for your ambient exposure (aperture and shutter speed etc.) The flash exposure is not decided at this time.

The flash metering is done with a pre-flash, milliseconds before the exposure. If the subjects are in place, the camera will read the flashed light off of them and use that to determine the actual flash power.

The two exposures (flash and ambient) are separate.

I understand what you're saying, actually the camera is probably doing the same thing with either approach as far as flash power. My way is to let the camera expose the people with the flash, but I control the ambient by adjusting the shutter speed in Shutter Priority mode. On my Nikon's, the camera will always under-expose the background in this type of scene, I think there is a minimum shutter speed that it will use which is not long enough to capture enough ambient at night... which is why I use shutter Priority mode to override this behavior.

Also I think it depends a lot on how close or far the people are, if they are too far back (too small in the frame), the camera will not get enough reading on the pre-flashes and therefor crank up the flash power.

Anyway, maybe my logic is a bit off, I'm just saying what has worked for me, and yes there is a bit of trial and error to find the right shutter speed without metering!

My best advice to the OP - grab a friend or spouse and go do some test shots outside at night!

 

[Big Mike]

I understand what you're saying, actually the camera is probably doing the same thing with either approach as far as flash power. My way is to let the camera expose the people with the flash, but I control the ambient by adjusting the shutter speed in Shutter Priority mode. On my Nikon's, the camera will always under-expose the background in this type of scene, I think there is a minimum shutter speed that it will use which is not long enough to capture enough ambient at night... which is why I use shutter Priority mode to override this behavior.

The problem with that, is that you will always be using the max aperture.

I do it pretty much the same, but I use manual mode. I set the aperture I want then adjust the shutter speed to get the ambient I want. I don't have to worry about the subject's exposure because E-TTL will match the flash power to the aperture (& ISO) setting. If I need to tweak it (if the people are too bright) then I just adjust the FEC.

Once I got the hang of it, it's really quick and easy. I don't really worry too much about metering. I have a sense of what settings will give me the ambient I want so I just go with that, check the shot and adjust if needed. I spend more time & though thinking about the effects of bouncing the flash or mixing in another light/flash.

 

[andrew99]

Sounds good, I'll try that. My idea has been to let the camera choose the flash power and aperture, since aperture has the most effect on the flash. To be honest, I haven't paid that much attention to what aperture the camera has been choosing, so I'll try in manual mode and see what happens!

 

[Big Mike]

Ya, you don't really need both the aperture and flash power to be automatic...the flash power will adjust to the aperture anyway.

I normally choose an aperture that gives me the DOF that I want. If the DOF isn't too important, then I'll use something like F4-F8. This gives me some play room with the focus. If I was shooting at F2.8, I might miss focus more often. Although, if I'm trying to get more ambient exposure, then I will use F2.8.

Also, because the flash power is tuned to the aperture (and the ISO) I consider that when choosing the aperture (and ISO). For example, if I shoot at F8 and ISO 100...my flash will have to work harder, which means it will recycle slower and go through batteries faster. If I shoot at F4 and ISO 400...I'll be able to flash more often and go longer without changing batteries.

 

[Early]

In an important shoot like this, you should use all options, like increasing the ambient light as much as possible. Do you have strobes with modeling lights? If flash is your only option, use a slow a sync speed, 1/30 sec or slower.