Halloween action, nighttime, Speedlite - What'd I do wrong?

[Tommys67]

I stood outside my building last night (NYC) for just 45 minutes snapping away at some awesome costumes. I got over 75 great exposures, and one of the ones I was hoping for just didn't quite make it.

I caught these guys coming down the street almost too late.

(30D, 24-70L @24mm and f2.8 at 1/80, Speedlite - pic has JUST been cropped and resized from original 2100w x 3000h)

Not fast enough on shutter speed?

http://www.suspectsunlimited.com/TPIX/Stilts.jpg

[DragonDan]

That would be my thought. I've been working on people shots in low lights recently as well. With those guys on stilts, it may have been too far for the Speedlite to throw, especially for the guy in back. Could you have upped the ISO and increased shutter speed?

[Tommys67]

I had it on full manual, and the majority of pics I took were at closer range (6-15 feet) and the Speedlite worked about perfectly - maybe TOO bright a few times.

The fact that they were moving prolly had something to do with it, and most of my mistakes with AF tend to be not noticing WHICH autofocus spot "caught" the right focus points.

Here's a link to the "snapshot" size shots;

http://www.suspectsunlimited.com/forum/index.php?topic=103.0

(I'm the Admin on the above forum - what I say goes!!)

[joedlh]

The duration of the speedlight flash is probably much shorter than 1/1000 sec. So subject movement is not the cause of the blur. More likely, it was focus. Autofocus doesn't do well in the dark. It also appears that they were walking obliquely toward you.