Flash/Bounce Questions

[fredmitcham]

Hey everyone, I just got a 430EX flash today and played around with it for a couple of hours and have a couple of questions.

1- Whether I put the camera on P (1/60th shutter) or Av (1/250th), the results are -identical-, how is that?

2- I bought a stofen omni-bounce but read that a lot of people choose to bounce their flash instead of using a diffuser, I found that I got best results bouncing the flash -with- the diffuser attached, is this not a good technique?

3- How do you know where to bounce? I bounced up, behind, to the side, to the side and up, etc.. and each one gave dramatically different results. Ideally I'd like to not have to try three different angles to get it right, flashes are fairly intrusive even when pointed away.

Thanks!

[me100finn]

1 - With those settings the camera is going to compensate either way on shutter/aperture to render a properly exposed image. 1/60th may be slow and produce blur in some instances.

2 - I dont have experience with the diffuser but hear it is recommended. If you had good results, what makes it a bad technique?

3 - Generally you'd want to bounce off an object that is white so you don't have an odd color cast, etc. But, as you state you can obtain different results. I had my son take a portrait of me and the flash bounced down at the table from a piece of white paper and it gave a very different lighting effect than the side. I would gather to say that it can be a personal preference on how you want your image to look.

[Hermeto]

Don’t use diffuser when bouncing the flash, you just waste the light.
Find a better surface to bounce off, use FEC, but do not diffuse AND bounce at the same time..

Do you find flash too much intrusive in this picture?

http://k41.pbase.com/o4/00/644000/1/57180016.IMG_3143_B.jpg

[jr_senator]

I have a 420EX and use the Omni-Bounce on occasion. I also have a 550EX and have other diffusers/bouncers I use with it that I prefer. Try to avoid just bouncing the light without using your Omni-Bounce if possiable, the light coming down from the bounce does not cast light into the eye socket area and gives what is referred to as "panda eyes". I'm not sure you are positioning the flash correctly, look at this link and see how the Omni-Bounce is to be used. http://www.stofen.com/

[cdifoto]

Hey everyone, I just got a 430EX flash today and played around with it for a couple of hours and have a couple of questions.

1- Whether I put the camera on P (1/60th shutter) or Av (1/250th), the results are -identical-, how is that?

2- I bought a stofen omni-bounce but read that a lot of people choose to bounce their flash instead of using a diffuser, I found that I got best results bouncing the flash -with- the diffuser attached, is this not a good technique?

3- How do you know where to bounce? I bounced up, behind, to the side, to the side and up, etc.. and each one gave dramatically different results. Ideally I'd like to not have to try three different angles to get it right, flashes are fairly intrusive even when pointed away.

Thanks!

1. Without seeing sample shots it's hard to say. Indoors it's likely the flash was the main light source, if not the only light source, so E-TTL took care of the exposure. Read the stickies in the lighting section regarding flash.

2. Diffuser or no diffuser - do what works for you. The Sto-fen has instructions for what the manufacturer considers proper use (ie the way it was designed to be used).

3. Practice, shoot, bounce how you want the light to be. There is no right or wrong.

[Wilt]

1- Whether I put the camera on P (1/60th shutter) or Av (1/250th), the results are -identical-, how is that?

In both cases, the flash was the primary source of light in the scene and probably the ambient light was too dim to register on the image whether 1/60 or 1/250 shutter speed was used. And as the flash output was more brief than the shutter open time, there is no observable effect in the flash component of the lighting, too.

2- I bought a stofen omni-bounce but read that a lot of people choose to bounce their flash instead of using a diffuser, I found that I got best results bouncing the flash -with- the diffuser attached, is this not a good technique?

First some basics...a specular light source is one which is like the sun in the sky, a point of light of relatively small size that causes sharper edged shadows; a diffuse light source is one which is relatively large light, like an overcast sky which causes the sun to not be seen but its light is spread across the clouds into a large light source and shadows are soft edged or virtually absent.

When you use the Stoffen or similar products, it is not the Stoffen unit on the flash which is diffuse, per se. It is the fact that the Stoffen is directing the light in all directions to bounce from many surfaces, and those surfaces mimic the clouds in becoming a very large source of light on the scene. The flash unit itself, with or without the Stoffen, is still a relatively specular light source (although the Stoffen does make the apparent area of the flash unit increase a few square inches which has small effect on the specular-vs-diffuse characteristic).

The technique you used with the Stoffen took advantage of both the small increased area of the apparent light source, as well as the 'from all directions' bounce of light. The increased area of the flash could be seen even though the flash was aimed upward, so it was still serving as a direct, somewhat specular light source, in addition to the ceiling and walls serving as the indirect, diffuse light source.

If you had merely aimed the flash upward at the ceiling, little light would go directly from the flash to the subject, but almost all the illumination would come after it had bounced off ceiling and walls. But if you had taped or rubber banded a white 3x5 card on the flash, that small card could serve as the small, somewhat specular direct light source.


3- How do you know where to bounce? I bounced up, behind, to the side, to the side and up, etc.. and each one gave dramatically different results. Ideally I'd like to not have to try three different angles to get it right, flashes are fairly intrusive even when pointed away.

If you think of different natural lighting circumstances, sometimes it is fully overhead (e.g. cloud filled, overcast sky); sometimes it is coming mostly from one side or other (large picture window on an overcast day). There is no 'right' or 'wrong', merely 'different'. Your eye accepts both as 'natural'. But as a photographer with a flash (and bounce) you get to control how you want it to look, rather than being 'forced into' using what the scene naturally provides. But there will be scenes where visual cues in the scene might make it apparent that light coming from that direction is not natural, and you would simply not want to bounce from that direction, whereas a different direction is more consistent with visual cues in the scene.

[fi20100]

Don’t use diffuser when bouncing the flash, you just waste the light.
Find a better surface to bounce off, use FEC, but do not diffuse AND bounce at the same time..

Now this seems like a strange advice. If you’re using a diffuser, it will not do much in case you don’t bounce the light at the same time.

[fredmitcham]

If I point the flash right at the person the diffuser makes a HUGE difference in reducing that harsh gray/white look. I took several pictures of my friend, with the flash pointed in all directions and then repeated with the diffuser. In almost every case shooting with the omnibounce gave equal, slightly better, or considerably better results.. only once did it come out worse because it was underexposed. By better I meaned wamer and more even/less directional looking lighting. A lot of times bouncing the flash up it looked like there was a big spotlight above their heads, or like they were watching a bright tv when bouncing it to a wall in front of them. In my living room I got best results point the flash to where the wall meets the ceiling, or in a corner. Thing is, I had to take five pictures to figure this out, I was wondering how to arrive at the best results a little quicker :)

Also by instrusive I meant, to the people in the room, flashes are bright and can get annoying even when not pointed directly at you.

[steved110]

Check out this link for good advice on how the eos flash system works. BTW there is an excellent set of stickies on speedlites in the flash section.

http://photonotes.org/articles/eos-flash/

[Jman13]

I have had my best flash results with a Sto-fen + bounce. It is MUCH better in my experience than a straight bounce. I love the relatively natural light that I get from both.

Here are two examples from Christmas with the Sto-fen and bounced flash...the second is especially nice considering how close I was to my sister: probably two feet.

http://www.jordansteele.com/images/recent/grayson_truck.jpg
http://www.jordansteele.com/forumlinks/jen_necklace.jpg

[Curtis N]

Fred, the responders above me have given a lot of good advice, and plenty of information to digest. There is a definite learning curve with flash. I will only add a couple of thoughts to what has been presented.
1) Every flash photograph is two exposures in one - A flash exposure and an ambient light exposure. Flash photography requires managing both exposures. You need to think about every shot twice. Keep this concept in mind as you read the articles already suggested.
2) Try to put yourself in your subject's position, either literally or figuratively, and think about where the light is coming from. Is it coming straight from the flash, a diffuser, bounced off some other surface, or some combination of those? How large is the light source from your subject's perspective? If you get into the habit of thinking this way, you'll climb the learning curve much faster.

[Titus213]

...

Also by instrusive I meant, to the people in the room, flashes are bright and can get annoying even when not pointed directly at you.

This is a problem only if you let it be...:lol: Unfortunately if you want to get the shot you will probably have to use flash. While it is intrusive to a degree unless the other folks are threatening you I wouldn't worry about it. If you're bouncing the light it will be softer than having a P&S flashing directly at you.