Please help me with my bad photos!

[fadetoblack22]

I have been testing my flash today by taking some photos of my dog. I didn't really know what I was doing and I would like some suggestions on improvements.

I had the flash off camera on the ground. It was ungelled as you can see in the warm evening sun.

I'm not sure what else to say about them.

[fadetoblack22]

Can noone help? :(

[CanadianKitKat]

Are you sure your flash fired? It doesn't look like any was used to me. Really cute dog BTW :-)

Looks like your shutter was at 1/1600. For starters take that down, you don't need it that fast for a pic of a dog at rest and your camera's flash sync speed is probably only 1/200 or 250 anyhow, so you should be staying at or below that if you are using flash. When using flash, the flash itself will stop any action or movement, not the shutter. If you want to use flash for a pic like this, you need to meter off the background, then use flash to expose the dog correctly, that way both parts will be exposed properly.

[Matthew Patrick]

The flash is not firing. How are you triggering the off camera flash?

[fadetoblack22]

Are you sure your flash fired? It doesn't look like any was used to me. Really cute dog BTW :-)

Looks like your shutter was at 1/1600. For starters take that down, you don't need it that fast for a pic of a dog at rest and your camera's flash sync speed is probably only 1/200 or 250 anyhow, so you should be staying at or below that if you are using flash. When using flash, the flash itself will stop any action or movement, not the shutter. If you want to use flash for a pic like this, you need to meter off the background, then use flash to expose the dog correctly, that way both parts will be exposed properly.

First, of all thanks for the nice comments about my dog :)

Ok, down to the camera stuff. I saw the flash fire each time and it made the power up noise after each flash. I'm new to this so I don't really know if something went wrong.

How did you get the shutter speed as 1/1600? I set it at 200 and that is the max it will go. I have attached the exif data for you to see.

I used the flash off camera if that helps at all. I triggered it using the pop-up flash on my camera in commander mode.

[CanadianKitKat]

Hmmm, that' strange, when I ran it through my exif reader, it showed that. I think I may have run the wrong pic through and not noticed or something? My bad.

Where was your flash pointed? Judging by the pics, it doesn't look like it fired at all. If I were you, I'd forget the flash altogether until you have mastered shooting natural light without it. Lower your aperture to 4.5. F10 is a little much for portrait type work. Also, try metering with your centre point only, that will let your camera meter off the dog rather than trying to meter the whole scene which is very bright in some spots, and very dark in other spots. Depending on how bright the sun is and where it is positioned in relation to your subject, you may end up with the sky a little too bright, but your subject should be exposed properly, which is the main thing you want.

[TheBigDog]

yeah it really doesn't look like your a) flash fired or b) the flash didn't hit your target or c) hit your target after the shutter closed
I've never used a flash off camera so unfortunately I don't think I can offer more assistance

[Matthew Patrick]

Since this is a mostly Canon forum you might not find a lot of folks familiar with the Nikon system. Here is a link to the Flicker/Strobist forum where you will find a lot of Nikon users that will know all about Nikon's Commander mode.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/strobist/discuss/