Lighting Practice

I will give it a shot. I appreciate the helpful information.

PROBLEM!

Sitting here getting ready for tomorrow, and I tested out the lighting.

If I shoot with the lights on, and the flash, it's still orange.. I went through all the WB features in the camera.. I shut the lights off, and used the light coming in from the balcony and it was better..

Even on flash? What is the shutter speed? Prob picking up ambient light from your tungsten bulbs.

All different shutters.. It's suppose to be sunny tomorrow, so I should be good with the outside ambient light coming through.

Set it to daylight and see how they look

will do

Impossible to help without knowing how you're shooting. All above answers are just guesses. Also, I'm not sure how to help you with the pictures you posted unless you made notes of everything when you shot each picture. i.e. If I say "I like #3" do you know how you shot #3? Can you repeat it?

Secondly, what mode are you shooting in? Manual, Av, P, etc? This will tell us how to help you. If the shutter speed is too low, the camera will start to pick up light from the room and white balance gets tricky. If you have the exposure set to give you a very dark picture with the flash turned off, then the lights in the room will obviously not affect the picture... the flash is doing all the lighting. In that case, you'd set the WB to Flash. I can tell in some of these (where there's a big shadow behind the bear on the left) that the shutter speed was higher than in some of the orange ones. Note the two go hand in hand. Proper color and strong shadow. Wrong color and no shadow. This is because the shutter speed is slow in the orange one and that slow shutter speed allows the room light to fill in the shadow.

Best advice is be methodical, take notes, and study the results. Worst advice is to shoot wildly, changing a bunch of stuff every picture, and expecting the EXIF data to be your notes to review on the computer.

I will take notes today. I never really thought of that.

Very good, let us know how it goes. Now you're on track to improve like never before!

it went well, Learned a few things. Kept on having to fight with the lighting though.. not sure if it was me, or what, but the flash just didn't seem as bright as it should have.

I didn't take notes.. BUT I still have the photos on my camera, so once I go through them and pic the ones that are good, I'll get the info off the camera lcd.. It's time for a faster lens, that much I know.

If the flash isn't bright enough, you can increase the power either at the camera or the flash by using FEC. Check that out in the manual for both the camera and flash. If it's turned up all the way, you can turn it to manual (full power). Still doesn't work, you can move the flash closer or zoom the flash in.

Yeah I didn't realize this until the shoot was done and I was trying to figure out why it wasn't over powering the room lighting.. First time with the flash, first time for a real shoot also.. thankfully it was just a friend, and not a paying customer. The pics like I said came out good, and I learned a few things, so the next one I do, will be even better.