Exposure Trouble at first Digital Wedding

[GoinDigital]

Ok ....I've had 6 years of successful wedding photography, film. For the past 9 months I've been shooting my 20D on vacation, around the house etc. Still no problems.

Time to take it on the job ...a wedding. Last night I hooked up my 580 flash, via off shoe cord, to the 20D and all my woes started. Although this wasn't the brightest church around, it certainly wasn't a dungeon. However, my shots were underexposed big time. I was in P mode, 200 ISO, at 2.8 and 1/60th (yes, I know I don't want to shoot at 2.8 ideally ...was just trying to get exposure to open up) Waaaay too dark. I went to 400 ISO. I dialed in +1 compensation. Nothing was much help.

The flash was in ETTL mode, full power. I'm assuming I don't want to shoot a wedding at 800 or 1600 ISO in consideration of quality enlargements.

What on earth am I doing wrong? I want to take my business digital, but I have to tell you that I wanted to grab my film, pop it in, and have no worries like the "good ole days"

I would so appreciate any help you can offer.

[PIXI_666]

i dont know what the problem is sorry goindigital, but i did a wedding yesterday at 1600ISO P mode, and tungsten WB....the pictures turned out beautifully. The church wasn't really dark but it wasn't really bright either...i used my 580ex on hotshoe.....dont be afraid of 1600ISO i was but after this wedding i think it will be my new methods for darker inside shots!!!

Del

[JaertX]

Well, I haven't shot a wedding yet where I could use flash during the ceremony, but the receptions I've done have been really dark. I set my camera in M mode at f/8, iso 200-1600, and shutter at anywhere from 1/30 to 1/125 depending on how much ambient I wanted. I use a 420EX set on a bracket. I've been consistently dissapointed in P mode and this setup above has worked so far...but I'm very inexperienced and there might be something I'm missing. Until I learn better, it's what I'll keep doing. Hope it helps.

[llaamaboy]

Can you check your camera readings with an other light meter?

[jamiewexler]

...I went to 400 ISO. I dialed in +1 compensation. Nothing was much help...

Was the +1 EV comp or FEC? The Canon flash system underexposes (on purpose, I think - you can always fix slight underexposure, but are screwed if overexposed). I routinely shoot with +1 FEC indoors when the flash is my main source of light. EV comp wouldn't help the flash situation...

I also have no trouble bumping the ISO up to 800 or even 1600. That's mainly to raise the level of ambient light, and the prints are fine at 8x10+.

[tim]

ISO200 is too low for any church i've ever been in. I start at ISO400 and go up to ISO1600 or even 3200 if I have to. I don't use a flash in a church either, unless I really, really have to. I never have had to so far, but I don't do many church weddings.

For my last wedding I i've started using full manual (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=151223), and I highly recommend it to anyone familiar with weddings and with the technical ability to use a light meter. Not recommended for wedding noobs at all.

[bpuppy]

I wouldn't be afraid of cranking the ISO on the 20D. If you get exposure right, you can use and blow up a 3200 ISO shot beautifully. I would go with M mode ... meter so that it's a half stop or so below ambient, then fire away and let the flash make up the rest.

I routinely use it on Tv mode too ... dial in 1/30 or 1/60, put it on ISO 1600 and fire away.

[tim]

What size enlargements have you made at ISO3200 bpuppy? 6x4s look perfect, but I wonder how large you could go without it looking grainy or losing detail.

[GoinDigital]

It was +l on the camera,not FEC. So perhaps there is a place to start when in P mode. Or sounds like no flash at all might be good, and definately higher ISO. I guess my brain is still thinking "film" because I definately would not have shot an 800 ISO wedding.

I'm hoping I can salvage these shots in Photoshop. Not sure how much underexposure I can compensate for.

[llaamaboy]

ISO200 is too low for any church i've ever been in. I start at ISO400 and go up to ISO1600 or even 3200 if I have to. I don't use a flash in a church either, unless I really, really have to. I never have had to so far, but I don't do many church weddings.

For my last wedding I i've started using full manual (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=151223), and I highly recommend it to anyone familiar with weddings and with the technical ability to use a light meter. Not recommended for wedding noobs at all.

Some of us are getting use to the idea of an automaic wedding... :D

Anyone ... if you want to use a light meter, make sure to get one that will compare ambient light with flash (two readings) so you can control your flash in your lighting circumstance.

[RobKirkwood]

I'm hoping I can salvage these shots in Photoshop. Not sure how much underexposure I can compensate for.
If you shot RAW, you've usually got around +/- 3 stops available - depends on the particular RAW conversion software you're using.

If you shot JPEG you might be able to do something in Photoshop by duplicating identical layers and stacking them, changing the blend mode to "screen" ...this is a tip from Scott Kelby's excellent book "The Photoshop CS2 Book for Digital Photographers". Haven't tried this method myself, but Scott has some great tips and I've no reason to doubt this one works.

[Phil V]

but I have to tell you that I wanted to grab my film, pop it in, and have no worries like the "good ole days"


What speed film would you have 'popped in' to make it alright? My guess is that it wouldn't be 200iso!

[jamiewexler]

It was +l on the camera,not FEC. So perhaps there is a place to start when in P mode...

That's where your problem lies. ISO 200 woud have been fine if your flash was giving enough light to illuminate your subject. +1 EV comp won't help you in a flash-as-the-main-light situation that you encountered. You needed to bump your FEC up. Like I said before, I routinely shoot my 20D at +1 FEC to get proper flash exposures.

Once you get the FEC settings to give you results like you were used to with film, then you can experiment with the higher ISO settings, and might find that you can turn the flash off in situations where it would have been impossible with 200 speed film. Bumping up your ISO to 1600 will also bring more ambient light into your flash exposures, leading to less "flash-like" images.

I shot a roll of 400 speed film last year, and was amazed at the amount of grain in the shadow details in even 4x6 prints. I can see how you would shy away from 800 on digital, but it's much cleaner. I shoot most night time receptions at ISO800, f5.6, 1/30-1/60.

[Bohlen Photo]

Anyone....Is it possible if he was using a stroboframe camera flip with camera in portrait vertical position that the flash was missing the top and bottom of the subjects as it remains horizontal?

[GoinDigital]

Shots were mostly horizontal. I think I needed the FEC and a higher ISO. I'll run over to the church tomorrow and try that with my kids as models ...what else do they have to do on their day off?

As for film at weddings ...I never shot above 200 ISO ... even in the darkest of churches and the ambient was always mixed very well with flash ..perhaps I had a good setup. I'm confident I'll get this ...and sell all that "film stuff" ...but boy was this a frustrating event!!

Thanks for the imput everyone

[BLINN]

GoinDigital, what was you focal lenght? You may have been shooting with too fast of a shutter speed. Or is it possible you had a porar filter on. Most in church images are shot at 800ISO or 1600ISO. For the most part these image will not be the ones they get blown up. If the formal shots are in the church, may I suggest getting some portable studio flash units. Good luck I hop you find the answer to your problem here somewhere.

[bpuppy]

What size enlargements have you made at ISO3200 bpuppy? 6x4s look perfect, but I wonder how large you could go without it looking grainy or losing detail.

I have an 8x12 that I shot with the 50mm f/1.8 at 3200 ... it's perfect. I did some Noise Ninja and sharpening and it's beautiful. I could go larger than that if I wanted ... not much larger though. But enough to fill an AsukaBook page, for sure.

[Mark_48]

GoinDigital, Were the shots that were underexposed include the bride in her white wedding gown? Or something else white/light colored that could have caused the metering to misread the scene. Digital is less forgiving than film for exposure latitude, so nailing down the exposure is a wee bit more challenging. The FEC should help.
Can you post a few of the shots here?

[tim]

I have an 8x12 that I shot with the 50mm f/1.8 at 3200 ... it's perfect. I did some Noise Ninja and sharpening and it's beautiful. I could go larger than that if I wanted ... not much larger though. But enough to fill an AsukaBook page, for sure.

Interesting - i'll try it myself some time! :)

[thebrewer]

Go on up to 1600 or 3200 ISO. Use Tv, Av or M mode to expose the backround. P mode is not going to set the exposeure for the backround. You will wind up with well lit people in a dark photo.

As far as noise, there will be less with a proper exposure. If you don't have a noise removal progeam, the PS noise removal tool can do a good job if you selectively use it on RGB color channels. On the 20D noise is usually prevalent in the blue or red channels. If you selectively clean up the channels you will keep detail in the photo while reducing noise.

The Kelby layer screen method works wll to save underexposed shots but it cannot get detail that is not there. Shooting RAW and bringing it in as a 16 bit will give you more to work with when correcting exposure. After correcting exposure you can drop down to 8 bit.

I would also try the flash without the cord to assure you are getting proper contact, just as a sanity check.

Rich

[dmp-potn]

Hello,

I never shoot in "P" mode with flash. Although I suppose it was designed to work, I've never had great results.

Instead, anytime I'm using ETTL flash (I have a pair of 420EX's now, so that's the only mode they support), I set the camera in manual mode. Usually, I use f/5.6, 1/125, ISO 400, but adjust aperture and ISO depending on the amount of ambient light. I set flash exposure compensation to either +1/3 or +2/3, checking the histogram between shots to make sure that everything looks right.

Using manual mode gives the camera fewer choices when deciding exposure. The only parameter that it has to manage is flash output.

For best results, I try to flash exposure lock on a medium toned object between shots, but my human subjects find that tiring after a while. As long as the subject is not covered in white or black, I get pretty good results without doing the FEL between shots.

It's important to keep in mind that the flash has a limited distance range. It works great when it's between ten and 20 feet from the subject. If the subject is much further away, light falloff will produce an underexposed shot, even at full flash output.

Hope this helps!