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photographing a party night
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Hi
I have been entrusted to take photos of an upcoming party night, I am very worried about the flash situation as at best it will be flourescent or dim lighting , I have ordered an external flash to put on the hot shoe but I am worried as to the best settings to use?
I have a Fuji Fine Pix s9600 and it never seems to like inside photos so much. Shall I go fully Auto or any recommendations? And I have never used an external flash before either ( hope it arrives in time!)
This is the flash spec
Guide Number(m): 28(ISO100?50mm Lens focus)
Coverage angle: 28~35~50~85mm Lens focus.
Recycle Time(sec): 6~8(A set of new alkaline batteries).
Flash duration (sec.): approx. 1/1000 .
Color Temperature(K): approx. 5600.
Flash times: =200(A set of new alkaline batteries).
Triggering method: Low voltage trigger.
Power source: 4 AA batteries (NiCd and NiMH chargeable batteries can be used).
Dimension (mm): 155?72?48.
Weight (g): 180(Exclude battery)Hope its going to help me in these indoor situations!!
Or would I be better sticking to the on board flash???????????Hi gouganebride09,
I’m not familiar with your camera so from the camera settings point of view its hard to say. However, some flash advice that I would give is as follows
1. Bounce your flash of the ceiling and other surfaces to create some softer light instead harsh flattening light pointed directly at the subject. (Bouncing if possible, will also eliminate red eye.)
2. Try and capture your subjects away from walls, as the flash will create harsh shadows behind them. Although bouncing will eliminate this also.
3. If your flash arrives in time, test a few test shots in as near as possible conditions to the venue so you can dial in some settings and see what’s what.
4. Check your Auto white balance against the flash and see if your whites are white. You may have to play around here to get something that looks right.
5. You may want to look into setting your flash compensation, dialing the power of the flash up and down. This gives you greater control over your lighting.
7. If you shoot on auto and the camera communicates to the flash in the correct way you should be ok. However, you may want to play around in manual, aperture priority and shutter priority modes to see if you can do any better then what your camera does. Sometimes you can be a better judge of what is right. The great thing with manual mode, is if you find the right balance between Aperture and Shutter speed and if the lighting conditions are consistent you can just shot away all night with those settings dialed in.
Another reason to do this, is that you may be in an environment with mixed lighting, incandescent, fluorescent, disco (coloured). In these environments the camera has a hard time metering and setting the proper white balance. You could eliminate some of these issues (particularly white balance) if your camera can shoot in RAW mode.
8. Make sure you have new batteries and some spares. Your flash will recycle quicker giving you a better chance to capture that magic moment.
9. You camera, or flash may have a focus assist lamp. This will help the camera focus, but will alert people to the cameras presence. If you need to get clear shots then make sure its on.
Just Google some flash type keywords and you will find lots of useful advice. There’s also some good YouTube video on lighting.
Hope this helps.
Stephen
Stephen, thankyou so much for taking the time to reply.
My new flash arrived today so I am going to have a mess around and get used to it.
I have never shot in RAW mode before and it sounds terryfing :lol: a really dumb question why would shooting in RAW help the light balance?
Definately going to try going Manual then!!
Yikes I am nervous, I am definately happier shooting non moving objects outside in nice light! :wink:
Will definately check out you tube for more info
Thanks again.
Hi gouganebride09,
I mentioned shooting in RAW mode as this gives you much more opportunity to fix things after the shot has been taken. You will have much more data to play around with fixing things like exposure, white balance, shadows and highlights.
There’s no big issues with shooting RAW from a shot taking point of view, simply set your cameras image settings to RAW mode if it supports it.
On the manual, aperture priority and shutter priority side of things, I just mentioned these because they may give you better control over how the camera sees and meters the scene in front of you. Having said that , you might find that your camera does a good job in fully auto mode.
The other thing to remember is that you can control the strength of your flash, by using the flash compensation +/-. You can play around with this so that your subjects faces dont seem too harshly lit, which is nearly also the case with flash party shots.
Hope this helps, and good luck with the party!
Stephen
Thanks so much for your replies!
Party coming up soon enough, but just before I have chance to practice, a friend has asked me to take photos tonight at her Irish Dancing class, and some may go to the local paper :shock:
I am figuring I will be asked to do a group shot at some stage, so after much googling I am guessing I need to be shooting at my smallest aperture setting which is f8, getting the group as close together as poss , and focusing mid way?? and using a tripod??
Help :lol: :lol:
Also capturing moving shots of dancing .., continuos Auto Focus, shutter priority?
Please let me know if I am the right track.
I find the more you google and look up the more useless you feel :cry:
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