50mm f/1.0L

[Mike H]

I've been doing some very low light photography lately, and my 50/1.4 is just too slow to cut it. I shot in a local club this weekend, and typical exposures were at 1/15-1/30 at f/1.4, ISO 3200. It's hard to handhold a 50mm at that speed, and the performers were pretty animated for those shutter speeds anyway. One more stop won't cure the problem totally, but it could help. I don't want to give in and use flash (it destroys the mood of the scene).

Does anyone have experience shooting the 50/1.0L that they can share? Thanks.

Mike H

[Belmondo]

I owned one for a while and never used it. It might help in your application, but you're going to spend a lot of money if you can find one at all, and it will be a relatively modest gain in performance over the f/1.4. It also tends to be a little soft at the larger settings----there's a lot of glass there. It's just a real beast.

[Mike H]

I owned one for a while and never used it. It might help in your application, but you're going to spend a lot of money if you can find one at all, and it will be a relatively modest gain in performance over the f/1.4. It also tends to be a little soft at the larger settings----there's a lot of glass there. It's just a real beast.

Thanks, Belmondo. In the end I may have to live with bouncing the flash and dragging the shutter. That works, but I'm such a fan of available light that I hate to go that way.

The other reports that I've read on the web say that the f/1.0 doesn't focus all that fast, which makes it hard to use for this application.

Mike H

[forrest64]

... in addition your depth of field is going to be about as thick as rice paper pressed by a steam roller for any pics you take close enough to get detail.


Mark

[cmM]

in a local club... I think you would need a little more DOF than what you get at f/1.0
If you're a fan of available light,.... have you tried taking advantage of the club's strobe lights (if they have any) ?

[Tom W]

I've shot in local clubs with the 1.4 at 1600. Probably a little brighter than your situation, but it can be difficult. I was getting between 1/30 and 1/90 shutter speed at f/1.4. Even f/1.4 is a little shallow, and I'd love to have been able to use 2.8.

Really, adding light would help. Perhaps you could coax the club owner into adding some mild, low level indirect light, or you could pick up some table candles as a gift (club owners like gifts). You need lumens!

[Mike H]

So far asking them to pump up the lighting hasn't really worked, even with me offering free pics of their work to the lighting people (though I didn't make that offer Friday night). When asked to increase light levels the lighting guys usually say "nah ... it looks so cool like this." :roll:

As far as bringing my own, I like the idea, but there are two problems. First, they want the lighting low, and might not be keen on me adding my own. The other problem is that the leaping performers and slam dancing audience came pretty close to damaging a fairly nimble photographer; my stationary light kit wouldn't do too well. :cry:

But I do appreciate the suggestions.

Mike H

[DaveG]

I've been doing some very low light photography lately, and my 50/1.4 is just too slow to cut it. I shot in a local club this weekend, and typical exposures were at 1/15-1/30 at f/1.4, ISO 3200. It's hard to handhold a 50mm at that speed, and the performers were pretty animated for those shutter speeds anyway. One more stop won't cure the problem totally, but it could help. I don't want to give in and use flash (it destroys the mood of the scene).

Does anyone have experience shooting the 50/1.0L that they can share? Thanks.

Mike H

You might want to think of another approach. I'd use the off camera TTL flash capabilities of the 550 & 420 flashes.

You are right about the on-camera flash spoiling the theatrical affect that the stage show creates; but that's only if the main light comes from the camera position. If the main light comes from another angle it'll look natural. The important thing is that all of a sudden you aren't shooting at very high ISO's with minimal depth of field and low shutterspeeds.

The way I'd do it would be to set up a 420 as a slave flash. I'd put it on a light stand and roughly 45 degrees from the shooting position. If it's inappropriate to use a stand you could get a friend to hand hold the slaved flash, or attach it to a monopod so he could position it as high as possible. The 550 is at the camera position and is the Master flash, and wireless TTL with ratios is enabled on the 550. I'd select a very high ratio 1:8 or something silly since fill flash isn't all that important. I might even select the 550's flash tube to be off.

All of this would be done with the wireless TTL that's built into the 550/420 combination. It requires a "message" pulse from the 550 to work, so some other fan's point and shoot won't trigger your slave. You could even choose to put a red (or any colour) gel over the 420 to make it look more like stage lighting.

The cost of a 550 and a 420 would be less than what a 50 mm f1 would cost and all of a sudden you'd be suing ISO 200 and f8!

[Tom W]

So far asking them to pump up the lighting hasn't really worked, even with me offering free pics of their work to the lighting people (though I didn't make that offer Friday night). When asked to increase light levels the lighting guys usually say "nah ... it looks so cool like this." :roll:

As far as bringing my own, I like the idea, but there are two problems. First, they want the lighting low, and might not be keen on me adding my own. The other problem is that the leaping performers and slam dancing audience came pretty close to damaging a fairly nimble photographer; my stationary light kit wouldn't do too well. :cry:

But I do appreciate the suggestions.

Mike H

I apologize - I somewhat misread the original post. You're shooting performers, not table candids and that kind of thing. Obviously, table candles aren't going to help much there. :)

Dave's got good experience in this area, and has helped me out a fair amount with lighting issues.

[Mike H]

DaveG,

Thanks for the advice. That sounds like a good setup. As it turns out, I already have the 420EX, 550EX, and ST-E2. Maybe each flash could have its own direction and color. I've never used any of the slave functions, so it's RTFM time.

So the idea would be not to preseve their light setup, but to create my own that has some of the characteristics of the stage light setup (strong direction and colors). I like taking control of my own destiny, especially when I can't get cooperation!

I'm not aware of any place you can get gels to put over either of the Canon flashes, though Stofen makes green and yellow colored versions of the Omni-Bounce. Of course, those would create a softer lighting if there is much bounce effect from the walls. These places seem to have pretty dark colored walls (at least the two that I've shot in lately).

I might just try to make my own gels. Those colored report covers you get for school papers could be cut to the size of the flash head and taped to the front. I hope they don't cause overheating!

The tough part will be figuring out where to safely put the strobes. I don't think many people would be willing to hold the strobes up for as long as I like to shoot. I'm a diehard sometimes. I have light stands, but I get the feeling they'll get kicked over pretty quickly.

I'll still want to use fairly high ISOs to get decent recycle times, and if I use gels they will cost me light.

Thanks again--that was very helpful.

Mike H

[Mike H]

So far asking them to pump up the lighting hasn't really worked, even with me offering free pics of their work to the lighting people (though I didn't make that offer Friday night). When asked to increase light levels the lighting guys usually say "nah ... it looks so cool like this." :roll:

As far as bringing my own, I like the idea, but there are two problems. First, they want the lighting low, and might not be keen on me adding my own. The other problem is that the leaping performers and slam dancing audience came pretty close to damaging a fairly nimble photographer; my stationary light kit wouldn't do too well. :cry:

But I do appreciate the suggestions.

Mike H

I apologize - I somewhat misread the original post. You're shooting performers, not table candids and that kind of thing. Obviously, table candles aren't going to help much there. :)

Dave's got good experience in this area, and has helped me out a fair amount with lighting issues.

Hey ... I'm glad you clarified that before I went out and tried it! :D

Can you picture me giving those slam dancing teens something that can be used to light fires? I think someone tried that at a big outdoor concert some time back ... now they don't have those concerts anymore. :lol:

Thanks for the message, nonetheless.

Mike H

[cmM]

I might just try to make my own gels. Those colored report covers you get for school papers could be cut to the size of the flash head and taped to the front. I hope they don't cause overheating!

Try these:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=45189&is=REG

It's practically free, and I have heard people cutting them and taping them to the flash to get different colored light.

[Mike H]

I might just try to make my own gels. Those colored report covers you get for school papers could be cut to the size of the flash head and taped to the front. I hope they don't cause overheating!

Try these:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=45189&is=REG

It's practically free, and I have heard people cutting them and taping them to the flash to get different colored light.

Wow! Those are cheap. The shipping will cost more than the gels. Thanks. :D

Mike H

[DaveG]

DaveG,


I'm not aware of any place you can get gels... Mike H

See if you can find a place that sells gels for stage lighting. This would also be the place that would rent equipment for bands for concerts, and that kind of thing.

They'll sell you sheets in great huge sizes which you don't want. What you DO want is some of their samples. I have a set in front of me made by Roscolux and there's about 150 3"x1" swatches of various colours. These are like paint swatch samples that you'd find in a paint supply store, except that these are transparent acetates and they're free. That size by the way is like they designed it for a 550/420! It fits just perfectly over the flash tube area. And did I say they were free? :D

[Mike H]

All of this leads to a very important question: does anyone know where I can find an ST-E2 manual on the Internet? I looked at the Canon site where they have lots of similar things, and they don't have it.

In the meanwhile, does anyone know if I can put the 550EX and 420EX well behind me and still have them be triggered by the ST-E2? I'm thinking that I'll want the flashes far back to avoid too much falloff (I don't want my aperture setting to have to change every time the subject moves back or forward a little). Also, far from the stage may be safer for the light stands.

I guess now I'll just go back to ripping the house up looking for that manual! :cry:

Thanks.

Mike H

[Tripod]

Mike,
In stead of asking the light guys to turn up the light talk to the owner. Offer them 10 to 20 photos of there big night for their web pages an let them get the lights turned up for you. I did that and when I went on vacation and missed a couple of show thay started to want to pay to insure someone showed up to take pics of their events. :D

[Alexandre Gabriel]

Let me make an almost stupid suggestion: tripod or monopod is an option ...?

[DaveG]

In the meanwhile, does anyone know if I can put the 550EX and 420EX well behind me and still have them be triggered by the ST-E2? I'm thinking that I'll want the flashes far back to avoid too much falloff (I don't want my aperture setting to have to change every time the subject moves back or forward a little). Also, far from the stage may be safer for the light stands.


Thanks.

Mike H

The Canon Wireless Flash system requires that the slaved flashes be in line of sight of the Master. With the 420 (or 550 if that is the slave) you'd turn the body of the flash towards the Master while keeping the top part of the flash pointed at the subject. Positioning the flashes behind you probably won't work.

You need to understand that the only information transfer going on is from the Master to the Slaves. That there is no communication going from Slave to Master seems to make sense. But Slave 1 is NOT passing any information onto Slave 2 either.

Now I wouldn't use the ST-E2 for this kind of shoot. First off its instructional pulse is much weaker than the instructional pulse you'd get from the 550. Inside a regular room the line of sight rule is often modified in practice by all the nice reflections that you get from ceiling and wall bounce. In a dark club you will get no help at all from the reflections, and the ST-E2 may well be too weak.

I'd also just use one flash off-camera. A basic lighting mode is main and fill. The flash in the hotshoe at the camera is the fill (albeit the more powerful 550 in this case) and the 420 is the main. Additional flashes are usually used as hair or background lights in portraiture and it's not likely that you need them for this. Besides you want to keep this simple.

The monopod or a hand held lightstand are good tricks to get the main flash as high as possible to make the lighting look natural. Maybe you could even mount the 420 on a bracket near the ceiling if the club is likely to help you. The 420 will go to sleep after it's been left unused for a little while so you just press the test button, the instructional pulse will fire and that should wake up the 420. You'll know the 420 is on when the red light pulses again.

When you get this all set up and the band's playing you get to play all kind of games. You can shoot at normal flash shooting speeds up to 1/200 of a second, but you might want to slow the shutterspeeds down to use some of the ambient light. Even if you shoot at 1/15 of a second (or whatever) the flash's short duration pop creates a very fast "shutterspeed" which is superimposed over the blurier ambient light shot. This is kind of trial and error to see how it looks but concert photography leaves a lot of room for funky looks, so give it a try.

I've mentioned these two points on this forum a few times but I'll say it again before you can ask: You set the 420 (slave) to the B group. The 550 will default to the A group. I mention this because if you look in the 550's instruction book (assuming you can find it :D ) it will imply that you need at least three flashes to use TTL wireless and that's just not true!

The other thing is to put soft self adhesive Velcro on the sides and top of the 420. Then you can attach black cards that you've made to the sides of the 420 to act as flags. This will direct the light to where you want it and will help you avoid flare.

This is all auto expsure from the flash by the way. Each shot is evaluated independently by the flash/camera. As bad as E-TTL is, the wireless E-TTL seems to be bang on. So you don't need to worry about having the performers moving in and out of the "f8 zone" shall we call it.

[Mike H]

Let me make an almost stupid suggestion: tripod or monopod is an option ...?

Thanks for the response. If what you're suggesting is that I shoot at slow shutter speeds and use a tripod or monopod it won't work because the subjects are moving fast.

Mike H

[Mike H]

Dave,

So far the only way that I've been able to get unobstructed shots is to stand directly in the front of the stage, so I'm going to need to position the flash units behind me. Behind me and over to one side might be best--say along a wall. Is there another trigger system that might work with the Canon flashes?

I've heard good things about Pocket Wizards, but I don't know if those work with Canon flashes. They work with monolights, but I hate to haul my White Lightnings out there for this--that's a lot to have to take apart and carry away at the end of a night when I'm exhausted. Also, there may not be a plug available where I need one. I definitely don't want to have power chords crossing the floor that people could trip over.

Thanks again.

Mike H

[slin100]

I've heard good things about Pocket Wizards, but I don't know if those work with Canon flashes.
They work fine with Canon flashes. In fact, they're practically the only reliable 3rd-party solution for remote triggering.

[Mike H]

I've heard good things about Pocket Wizards, but I don't know if those work with Canon flashes.
They work fine with Canon flashes. In fact, they're practically the only reliable 3rd-party solution for remote triggering.

Steve,

Thanks for the response. What type of Pocket Wizard works with a 420EX and/or 550EX? I just went to their site, and it's a little difficult to tell what setup I need or how it works. Obviously, I will need a sender and receiver. How do these attach to the flashes? Can I still have a flash in the hot shoe, or will the PW send unit be there?

Would the same send & receive units work with my White Lighting flashes? It would be nice to get as much use out of them as I can if I'm gonna drop a couple of hundred bucks.

Mike H

[DaveG]

I've heard good things about Pocket Wizards, but I don't know if those work with Canon flashes.
They work fine with Canon flashes. In fact, they're practically the only reliable 3rd-party solution for remote triggering.

Steve,

Thanks for the response. What type of Pocket Wizard works with a 420EX and/or 550EX? I just went to their site, and it's a little difficult to tell what setup I need or how it works. Obviously, I will need a sender and receiver. How do these attach to the flashes? Can I still have a flash in the hot shoe, or will the PW send unit be there?

Would the same send & receive units work with my White Lighting flashes? It would be nice to get as much use out of them as I can if I'm gonna drop a couple of hundred bucks.

Mike H

When you use the radio slaves with the Canon flashes you lose all of their TTL capabilities. I don't know how you'd use the 420 since it doesn't have an automatic or manual setting, only E-TTL. Maybe it defaults to full power or something but I just don't know. A Vivitar 283 or similar flash would be more economical and would actually retain an Automatic feature, while all you'd get out the 550 would be adjustible manual settings.

Any radio slave you buy would work with any studio strobe, assuming you have the correct slave to flash synch cord.

In regard to your flash placement you never want to have the flashes directly behind you. That brings you right back to the flash-at-the-camera-position horrible, flat lighting.

You need to have the flash at an angle to you and the subject to create an interesting light. Send me an email and I'll send you some shots I did of a banker talking at a podium. If I can make THAT interesting with lighting only, think what it's do for a band! dgrandy@grandyphoto.com

[Mike H]

In regard to your flash placement you never want to have the flashes directly behind you. That brings you right back to the flash-at-the-camera-position horrible, flat lighting.

You need to have the flash at an angle to you and the subject to create an interesting light.

Dave,

I didn't mean directly behind me. What I meant was that I will stand near the center of the stage, directly in front of it, while the flash units will be along the walls, further away from the stage. If they were in front of me they would be on the sides of the stage (side lighting). I would prefer 3/4 lighting, or a 45 degree angle to the center of the stage, which is what I think you were suggesting. Sorry for the confusion. Thanks.

Mike H