Shooting with two flashes - need help

[karusel]

As a matter of a fact, I'll be shooting friends of a friend, musicians, for a journal, I think, so logically, he asked me. :D Incidentaly just a day before that, yesterday, I've bought a Canon 550EX and Sigma 500 DG Super. So my remaining setup is as follows:
-10D
-Tamron 28-75 f/2.8
-Canon 50mm f/1.8
-a cheap tripod
-4 sets of 2300 mAh batteries

I don't have any diffusers, as I was unable to obtain them by now and the store that has them is closed tomorrow.

Being a complete, total and utter noob regarding flash photography, I'm asking for some basic and/or detailed expert advice. Yes, I know exactly how this sounds, but regarding the circumstances (getting published) I don't want to, well, screw it up. I'd like to know what is erm... considered normal or, usual. What ISO speed to use, what to do with available light, ircandescent (or other?) lights in the room, and consider that the ceiling may or may not be white and if, should one use it to bounce the flash, should I use manual mode on the camera and if, at what settings (the aperture would be set to cover the points of interest), should I rely on E-TTL and just adjust the settings in M mode and fire away, should I set the slave flash manually to illuminate the other side of the POI... I'm in desperate need of answers...

So please, spill some of your knowledge here, or point me to where I could obtain it quickly (I know, I know...). Help me and I'll owe you big.

Also, here is a crappy sketch that was drawn by a pack of stray cats that I caught today when they were sniffing for some pizza leftovers in the trash can, to contribute to general confusion:

http://freeweb.siol.net/avenger/room.jpg

The lines around the rectangle should represent a wall, I guess, the C is the camera guy, in this case - me, the S is the Sigma slave flash, the crossed circles are the people the guy on the right has a keyboard in front of him and the hot chick on the left a microphone. At least this is how I assume the scene would look like and I'd shoot it like that, so is that a total no-no, is it.. what? How is a good way to shoot a scene like that, where to put the slave flash...?

[robertwgross]

This is way too much to try to delve into quickly.

For one thing, notice that the microphone performer is about twice as far away from the Sigma flash as the keyboard performer is. What effect to you think that will make on the relative amounts of light reaching them? Microphone performers are often highlighted more than keyboard performers, so switching that around might get better results. Too bad you don't have a slave flash to place on each side.

---Bob Gross---

[DaveG]

As a matter of a fact, I'll be shooting friends of a friend, musicians, for a journal, I think, so logically, he asked me. :D Incidentaly just a day before that, yesterday, I've bought a Canon 550EX and Sigma 500 DG Super. So my remaining setup is as follows:
-10D
-Tamron 28-75 f/2.8
-Canon 50mm f/1.8
-a cheap tripod
-4 sets of 2300 mAh batteries

I don't have any diffusers, as I was unable to obtain them by now and the store that has them is closed tomorrow.

Being a complete, total and utter noob regarding flash photography, I'm asking for some basic and/or detailed expert advice. Yes, I know exactly how this sounds, but regarding the circumstances (getting published) I don't want to, well, screw it up. I'd like to know what is erm... considered normal or, usual. What ISO speed to use, what to do with available light, ircandescent (or other?) lights in the room, and consider that the ceiling may or may not be white and if, should one use it to bounce the flash, should I use manual mode on the camera and if, at what settings (the aperture would be set to cover the points of interest), should I rely on E-TTL and just adjust the settings in M mode and fire away, should I set the slave flash manually to illuminate the other side of the POI... I'm in desperate need of answers...

So please, spill some of your knowledge here, or point me to where I could obtain it quickly (I know, I know...). Help me and I'll owe you big.

Also, here is a crappy sketch that was drawn by a pack of stray cats that I caught today when they were sniffing for some pizza leftovers in the trash can, to contribute to general confusion:

http://freeweb.siol.net/avenger/room.jpg

The lines around the rectangle should represent a wall, I guess, the C is the camera guy, in this case - me, the S is the Sigma slave flash, the crossed circles are the people the guy on the right has a keyboard in front of him and the hot chick on the left a microphone. At least this is how I assume the scene would look like and I'd shoot it like that, so is that a total no-no, is it.. what? How is a good way to shoot a scene like that, where to put the slave flash...?

The only way that you are going to be able to use this setup is with the 550 on manual. If you use it on E-TTL you're going to get a double pop of light. The first one helps with focusing and such, but it will fire the slave in your other flash. When the REAL flash pulse and the shutter opens in the 10D the Sigma will be in the middle of recycling and you'll get nothing from it. When the 550 is on Manual there is only one pulse and the Sigma will slave properly.

The main thing that you want to do when you use flash is to try to keep the main light from coming from the camera position. Thus your Sigma becomes your MAIN light. The 550 at the camera position becomes the fill flash, and this is OK.

If you are trying to do this shoot in the middle of a concert you're screwed since you won't have the flexibilty to make adjustments. Not to mention that every other person in the room with a flash is going to set off your slave too!

But if it's a lovely private set-up shot all is possible. Set up the Main (45 degrees to one side, perferably on a light stand, but probably held up by a hanger-on flunky!) and take a shot with the 550 set to a weak Manual setting like 1/64 power. This should trigger the slave (ironically the Slave is the MAIN light in this example and most lighting setups!) It should only take a few shots and reviews on your 10D to determine what the exposure is. I assume that you don't have a flash meter. If you do that's better but the review/histogram in this case will be OK.

Once you have the Slave/Main light exposure set (say f5.6) steadily increase the Manual power setting until the Master/Fill light fills in the shadows somewhat. Maybe you'll like very little fill is the shadows since it'll be more dramatic. That's up to you. If the Main is almost one stop brigher than the fill this is a 3:1 lighting ratio. Any film or capture will be able to handle the latitude of a 3:1 lighting ratio. That means that you get shadow detail and no blown out highlights, and is a very conventional portait lighting ratio.

You should attach some black cards to the sides of the slaved flash too. Just use self adhesive Velcro to hold the cards on to the flash head, hard Velcro on the card, soft on the Sigma. The cards used this way are called flags and will prevent your camera's lens from flaring. I use smallish cards on my slaved 420 flash's and they work well.

I'd use ISO 400 just to conserve battery power and have quicker recycling on the Sigma.

[iof]

DaveG,

If you were doing this with two 550's or a 550 and a 420, how would you do it?

[DaveG]

DaveG,

If you were doing this with two 550's or a 550 and a 420, how would you do it?

The system that I do use is a 550 and one or two 420's. I use the Canon wireless TTL system. The 550 would be the Master/Fill and the 420 the Slave/Main. I set up the 420 on a light stand so that it doesn't move, and with anti-flare flags in place. The 550 is set up on Master with ratios enabled and I usually choose a 1:3 ratio. Yup that's 1:3, NOT 3:1 since that seems to be the way this works! I point the body of the 420 back towards the camera flash position so it gets a really good look at the instructional pulse that comes out of the 550. The head of the 420 is pointed at the subject.

At the camera position I can change the ratios and even have the 550 produce the instructional pulse only. That technique (no fill) creates a very dramatic short lighting. I use (as I said above) ISO 400 and with my stuff I prefer an aperture of around 2.8. The ISO and the aperture provide almost instant recycling to the point where I thought I broke something when I inadvertantly chose an aperture of f8 and couldn't figure out why the 420 wouldn't pop!

The camera (at 10D at the moment and a 20D in a couple of weeks :D. ) is on a Stroboframe Pro-T bracket with the 550. I usually use my 70-200 f2.8 L lens and that's on a monopod using the lens' tripod collar. Carefully, but relatively, easily I can move from vertical to horizontal shooting.

I have to say that after I decided to try this camera/bracket/monopod/flash set up I thought that I'd do it once, find out that it was more trouble than what it was worth, and never do it again. But to my delight I found that it worked very well and that I could change lenses fairly easiliy, leaving the 70-200 on the monopod and handholding the new lens.

In any case when I shoot corporate "podium" shots that's the technique I use. That shot is as boring as anything that you can imagine yet the lighting adds drama and punch. If anyone wants to see a few of these shots email me at dgrandy@grandyphoto.com and I'll email you a few.

[edsarkiss]

here's what i'd do...

- use the built-in flash on your 10D as the "master"
- put the 550 on a tripod at the left-front of the stage
- put a vivitar SL-2 (optical slave trigger) under the 550
- put the sigma on a tripod at the right-front of the stage
- put everything on manual mode.

so now the 550 is the main light for the singer, the sigma the main light for the keyboardist. both flashes should fire with every shot (triggered by your built-in flash, remember) -- so they will complementarily fill each others' light.

it may take some experimentation to get the relative ratios of power on each slave + get the minimal power on the built-in flash to reliably trigger both, but once you get it riight you can shoot from anywhere and use the same exposure -- since the primary light is fixed in position, the camera is free to move!

i'd start with 1/2 or full power on the big flashes just to minimize the effect of the camera's flash on the exposure. ISO400 is a great suggestion too -- on the 10D it's such a nice compromise between sensitivity and noise.

you may also want to put colored gels over the flashes to get a little more funky, a little more creative, and most of all to counteract the dead and boring look of str8 flash on skin.

sounds like fun!

[DaveG]

here's what i'd do...

- use the built-in flash on your 10D as the "master"
- put the 550 on a tripod at the left-front of the stage
- put a vivitar SL-2 (optical slave trigger) under the 550
- put the sigma on a tripod at the right-front of the stage
- put everything on manual mode.

so now the 550 is the main light for the singer, the sigma the main light for the keyboardist. both flashes should fire with every shot (triggered by your built-in flash, remember) -- so they will complementarily fill each others' light.

it may take some experimentation to get the relative ratios of power on each slave + get the minimal power on the built-in flash to reliably trigger both, but once you get it riight you can shoot from anywhere and use the same exposure -- since the primary light is fixed in position, the camera is free to move!

i'd start with 1/2 or full power on the big flashes just to minimize the effect of the camera's flash on the exposure. ISO400 is a great suggestion too -- on the 10D it's such a nice compromise between sensitivity and noise.

you may also want to put colored gels over the flashes to get a little more funky, a little more creative, and most of all to counteract the dead and boring look of str8 flash on skin.

sounds like fun!

The built in (pop up) flash in the 10D can't be used as a Master either on E-TTL or Manual. It has no provision for Master in E-TTL and can't be anything BUT E-TTL so it won't work on Manual since it has no such setting.

[edsarkiss]

The built in (pop up) flash in the 10D can't be used as a Master either on E-TTL or Manual. It has no provision for Master in E-TTL and can't be anything BUT E-TTL so it won't work on Manual since it has no such setting.

But the built-in flash *does* fire with the camera set to Manual mode. I've never used any of the fancy flash-flash communicators -- i have always relied on dumb optical sensors or PC cords and setting the power output on the individual strobes.

Are you saying that the E-TTL steps in here to regulate the built-in flash's output with the camera in Manual? (i'm a little in the dark about some of the Auto features of the 10D)

If that's the case, it seems that the original poster may get unpredictable results in the multi-slave concert setting, though my guess is that the built-in would always be firing at 100% power because it's fairly weak. This could work, or it could suck ;-) I wonder if using FEC could reliably reduce the power... something to experiment with.

Interesting that my G3 has a "Flash Power" setting while in manual mode, but the 10D doesn't ;-)

[robertwgross]

But the built-in flash *does* fire with the camera set to Manual mode.


But that is still not a Canon Master flash.


I've never used any of the fancy flash-flash communicators -- i have always relied on dumb optical sensors or PC cords and setting the power output on the individual strobes.


And the Canon wireless flash system does not incorporate dumb optical sensors, either.

---Bob Gross===

[edsarkiss]

But the built-in flash *does* fire with the camera set to Manual mode.


But that is still not a Canon Master flash.
And the Canon wireless flash system does not incorporate dumb optical sensors, either.

---Bob Gross===

That's too bad! This situation would be far simpler with a couple of SL-2's to put under the main strobes. I was suprised to see the price of a new Viviitar 285 (simple, good strobe used by pros for years [decades?]) at around $80 today. That's a great value -- two of those coupled with a dumb optical sensor would be a killer solution in this concert situation, and the total package would be less than $250.

[robertwgross]

That's too bad! This situation would be far simpler with a couple of SL-2's to put under the main strobes. I was suprised to see the price of a new Viviitar 285 (simple, good strobe used by pros for years [decades?]) at around $80 today. That's a great value -- two of those coupled with a dumb optical sensor would be a killer solution in this concert situation, and the total package would be less than $250.

A professional photographer would not care much whether the solution was $250 or twice that, but he would care whether it simply got the best result.

If the situation is a controlled studio with nobody else around, then the optical slaving thing works. But if it is a live entertainment hall, then Uncle George fires his Instamatic a few feet away and everything pops. I call that uncontrolled, and a Canon wireless flash system gets very handy.

---Bob Gross---

[edsarkiss]

re-reading the original post, how about available light?

you don't mention if there will be interesting lighting at the venue.

if there is, you could do some neat things with:
- long exposure + flash (balance exposure time / aperture to capture the lighting, then the flash to freeze the action -- 2nd curtain sync may be nice)

- high ISO (1600 / H [3200]) -- noisy, but if the lighting tech did a good job, take advantage of it

here are a couple examples (from Coachella music festival a few years ago):

balanced flash / available light:
http://nobot.2y.net/pictures/coachella/?16

flash only (ick! -- so much of the atmosphere is GONE):
http://nobot.2y.net/pictures/coachella/?3

available light only:
http://nobot.2y.net/pictures/coachella/?12

regardless, if you use the flash, you may create a bouncer / diffuser out of some heavy paper if you can't get to the photo store. just point the flash head straight up and construct a 45 degree reflector to bounce the light out. a manilla file folder is a good thickness/weight for this, and has the added effect of warming up the color of the light. make it a trapezoidal shape, and build it with "sides" -- so it's not just a floppy piece of paper. if you need more info, i can draw what i'm thinking for you.

anyhow, karusel, i hope you have fun being the "official" photographer. i've always had a good time in the past when i've managed to be in that situation.

[DaveG]

The built in (pop up) flash in the 10D can't be used as a Master either on E-TTL or Manual. It has no provision for Master in E-TTL and can't be anything BUT E-TTL so it won't work on Manual since it has no such setting.

But the built-in flash *does* fire with the camera set to Manual mode. I've never used any of the fancy flash-flash communicators -- i have always relied on dumb optical sensors or PC cords and setting the power output on the individual strobes.

Are you saying that the E-TTL steps in here to regulate the built-in flash's output with the camera in Manual? (i'm a little in the dark about some of the Auto features of the 10D)

If that's the case, it seems that the original poster may get unpredictable results in the multi-slave concert setting, though my guess is that the built-in would always be firing at 100% power because it's fairly weak. This could work, or it could suck ;-) I wonder if using FEC could reliably reduce the power... something to experiment with.

Interesting that my G3 has a "Flash Power" setting while in manual mode, but the 10D doesn't ;-)

I think that we might be talking about two things. First your camera has a manual setting and that's for "manually" controlling the aperture and shutterspeed. You certainly can use the 10D's built in flash on this setting.

But there's also a "Manual" setting available on some flashes and that, as it's name implies, is just the flash firing. My 550 has a Manual setting and if I use it on that it emits full power (although it can be dialed down in power, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8 and so forth) without any regard for the correct exposure. I'd have to use a flash meter or trial and error to get the correct exposure so you can see what it's not all that useful for regular type flash photos.

But the pop up flash in your 10D is E-TTL ONLY and will not trigger regular light strobes. E-TTL uses two flash pulses, a weak first pulse that helps with focus and flash information. Then the real pulse pops in conjunction with the shutter opening. The problem is that the first E-TTL flash pulse will trigger your slave which is then NOT ready, milleseconds later, to fire in in response to the main E-TTL pop.

The 550 also has a control that can enable the flash to be a Master. I would choose this if I was using the Canon Wireless TTL system with other Canon flashes. The camera's built in flash has NO Master setting so it cannot be used in this context, although it would be great if it could.

There is at least one accessory slave (Wein perhaps?) that has special circuitry built in that ignores the E-TTL's first pulse and will fire on the second. That would let you use the pop up flash to trigger a strobe but only with that special slave.

If I was trying to do this shot in a busy arena with lots of fans the only real solution would be to use radio slaves. They are impervious to other peoples flashes, and light slaves certainly are not. And they have a much longer range than the Canon Wireless system. All those Sports Illustrated basketball and hockey shots are lit with rafter mounted strobes and triggered by radio slave.

[karusel]

Thanx for your replies, they were really useful when I was struggling for best shots.

Now, the post-apocalyptic impressions... I knew this sort of photography is a tough business, but Jesus Christ!!! :shock:

I was a few braincells short of figuring out what exactly I want, so I let the chips fall as they may, I guess... over 300 RAW shots done, I figure at least a few will be good.. the biggest trouble was the shadows that were never in the right place.

I'll post some samples after I'll have reviewed and processed the photos...

[edsarkiss]

looking forward to seeing them, karusel.

did you have a good time shooting? or were things a bit too hectic?

[karusel]

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