Indoor Flash?

[cagirlintexas]

My friend wants me to shoot some pictures of her Classical music trio warming up (piano, violin, cello) today. I am still new to flash but was thinking of using my 580 ex with a diffuser. Any advice. It will be indoors in the evening.

[CaptainTom]

What sort of room will it be in?
Bounce the flash if at all possible.
Use your flash without a diffuser. Point the flash straight up at the ceiling and have the built in bounce card out.
Bounce the flash off of a side wall if possible.
Shoot in RAW and use a tripod if possible.
Use ANY of the white balance presets EXCEPT AWB.

[cagirlintexas]

You wouldn't use the diffuser? I will defiantly shoot in raw that has saved pictures in the past.
What setting would you have it on for bouncing it of the ceiling?

[ngoduyviet]

Originally Posted by cagirlintexas

You wouldn't use the diffuser? I will defiantly shoot in raw that has saved pictures in the past.
What setting would you have it on for bouncing it of the ceiling?

Diffuser is a misleading term if you referred to the stofen or anything you cover your on board 580 EX with for "softer" light. They are omnibounce devices, using it is good in some circumstances (i.e. small rooms, low ceiling), but not all (i.e. outdoor). They do cut down your flash power quite a bit unless you don't need too much flash.

You are not gonna like hearing this, but there's no set-in-stone setting for bouncing. The simplest solution is set your camera in manual mode, and let your flash figure out how to light the subjects, then you only have to worry about adjusting the flash compensation. What I normally do is set the camera very close to ambient light with the shutter speed at least 1/60 to avoid normal ghosting introduced with fast motion, then fill in with manual flash (or set to TTL if you are not comfortable with manual)

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

If you have a wireless trigger or a sync cord get the flash unit off of the camera and to the side as much a possible. (beg borrow or steal a second flash for the opposite side and then use your on camera flash [this gives you 3 light sources] and then turn down your on camera flash (or put a difuser in front of it) and let the two remote units be the primary lighters of the scene.

So Piano is to one side then the other two performers I would place to the pianists to the right (if they are facing toward your right and opposite if they are facing opposite) so the stringed instrument players are in front of the body of the piano and then use the remote flashes to light the scene from the two ends of the scene so think of it this way.

Pianist to the left of your frame (some empty space behind them) so to your left a remote flash about midway between you and the piano but to the far left out of frame, then the two stringplayers in front of the piano and then the second remote flash to the right of the frame a bit closer to the piano since it most likely will be at an angle to you and the end of the grand piano will be farther away from you than the keyboard- so the two flashes are about the same distance physically from the pianos body. You may have to have the two flashes at slightly different settings so that the one by the end of the piano doesn't blow out the highlights on the players.

Good Luck, and realize that you can adjust light levels and move light stands (as simple as a tripod with a second stick/rod attached to add some height for the flash to be attached to) and even move yourself around. Remember that the higher F that you can shoot will give you more depth of field in sharp focus and most lenses tend to be better in their midrange than wide open- so f8-f16 range is what you are shooting for. (if your lense closes down to f22 or higher).

[humminboid]

Melissa: Paul Gregg has some definitely useful ideas regarding flash and light modifiers.

He recommends using his "Ultimate Bounce Card", because, unlike an omni-bounce, it wil not diminish the light being directed at the ceiling, and it bounces light forward for fill.

Bounce can be very effective, depending upon the height of the ceiling, and color. If it is too high/dark, do what the newsies did for the Olympics: flash set at about 65-75 degrees, StoFen or equivalent, and shoot away.

Another solution, if it will fit your flash, is buy a plastic bottle of alcohol at the grocery store. The squarish bottle works best. Cut it off about 3-4 in. above the bottom, or top, and fit it over your flash head. The vertical piece will create a diffused light source, and if you cut some of the bottom out, those raging photons will fly straight to the ceiling, where they will do the job you need them to.

Not cool looking, and may need some tape to hold it secure on your flash, but effective and cheap. Of course, a plain white card taped to the flash head works fine, too.

[Daniel W.]

If it's under tungsten light and there's not much to bounce, go with the fastest lens you have. This will allow for some great DOF shots (i.e. with violinists, focus on the fingerboard and let everything else fall into oblivion).

If there's a low white ceiling, then bounce with a card to push a little light forward. I have a challenge with flash indoors as far as color balance... that's just me though.