Sppedlight on TV?

Just moving toward a speedlight 430 exii and I'm sorting out the basics. I usually shoot on av. And I don't want to aim the flash directly at my subject. I was shooting indoors in medium light with the flash but at 5.6 I ended up shooting at 1/20th and getting a lot of shake. Should I switch to TV mode to avoid this shutter speed problem. Yep, I'll be reading the manual, for sure. But I also wanted to troll around here for some tips. I'm not used to shooting in TV. AV is my go to mode. But I'm sorting out the best way to ensure shots. OF course raising ISO is another option.
Appreciate any thoughts/tips here as I get started.

You could do that, but you would lose control over your depth of field. The better option would be to shift it into manual mode on the camera, ettl on the flash. The flash will bridge the difference between the shutter speed and aperture you select.

For sure go to manual. Set your shutter speed for as low as you think you can handle, then tweak the ISO so that you under expose your ambient by a stop or so. Let the ETTL do the rest, adjust as needed with FEC.

mulchie wrote in post #12415566
Just moving toward a speedlight 430 exii and I'm sorting out the basics. I usually shoot on av. And I don't want to aim the flash directly at my subject. I was shooting indoors in medium light with the flash but at 5.6 I ended up shooting at 1/20th and getting a lot of shake. Should I switch to TV mode to avoid this shutter speed problem. Yep, I'll be reading the manual, for sure. But I also wanted to troll around here for some tips. I'm not used to shooting in TV. AV is my go to mode. But I'm sorting out the best way to ensure shots. OF course raising ISO is another option.
Appreciate any thoughts/tips here as I get started.

Your problem stems from not understanding the difference between flash exposures and exposing for the ambient light.

• The camera's meter knows NOTHING about the flash you are attempting to use and will try to expose for the ambient light - especially if you use Av or Tv exposure dial modes. That's why the very slow shutter speeds are being used.
  
• Shutter speed, as long as it is at or slower than the "maximum sync speed" for the camera, has absolutely no effect on exposure from electronic flash sources.
  
• The only reason to use shutter speed slower than the "max sync speed" for your camera (probably around 1/200 or 1/250 second) when using a flash lighting source is to capture some of the ambient (continuous) light along with that from your flash.

Looks like I'm heading for manual mode here. I do understand that the camera is reading for ambient light, but I guess I hadn't thought that through sufficiently. I really seldom use a flash, as I prefer ambient light, so I appreciate these thoughts. The trick will be trying to find the sweet spot between ambient light and flash, since I don't want to lose the natural feel of the pic.
Thanks everybody.

Av/Tv use the flash as a fill only (eg for outdoor shots)

Manual uses the flash as the primary light source, so is better for indoor shots. This is very confusing but there is a good explanation in one of the sticky threads above if you are interested.

mulchie wrote in post #12418001
........The trick will be trying to find the sweet spot between ambient light and flash, since I don't want to lose the natural feel of the pic.
Thanks everybody.

Finding the sweet spot, that really is the dilemma.

mulchie wrote in post #12418001
Looks like I'm heading for manual mode here. I do understand that the camera is reading for ambient light, but I guess I hadn't thought that through sufficiently. I really seldom use a flash, as I prefer ambient light, so I appreciate these thoughts. The trick will be trying to find the sweet spot between ambient light and flash, since I don't want to lose the natural feel of the pic.

There's something additional that you should consider if you want to mix ambient light and flash in a way that both have a significant effect on the image.

If the ambient light is from a man-made source, you should probably put a colored gel over the flash to make the color of the light emulate the type of light that is primary for the ambient light. For example, you could use a CTO gel over the flash when the ambient light is primarily incandescent ("tungsten"). You would then set the camera's white balance selector to "tungsten". Of course, you can also shoot in RAW mode and do any desired correction in the RAW conversion process.

By matching the light from the flash to the ambient light, you'll have a lot better results when correcting the colors in your images.

Very helpful points here.
I am almost exclusively shooting in RAW, so can I presume this means the gel/light balance issue is moot? I prefer addressing temperature etc. in pp.

mulchie wrote in post #12418944
Very helpful points here.
I am almost exclusively shooting in RAW, so can I presume this means the gel/light balance issue is moot? I prefer addressing temperature etc. in pp.

No.

It's best to try and match the flash color with the ambient, shoot a WB care, then WB adjust in post.

mulchie wrote in post #12418944
Very helpful points here.
I am almost exclusively shooting in RAW, so can I presume this means the gel/light balance issue is moot? I prefer addressing temperature etc. in pp.

No, shooting raw allows for lattitude, but you are missing a key element. Because you are balancing ambient light with flash you will have two different colors of light. The flash is somewhat the same WB as sunlight, but the ambient light will vary considerably by source. So if you shoot a balanced shot, half of your light is coming from one color source, the flash, and the rest from a separate color source. Lets say you use the flash white balance with tungsten lights in the background. Your subject is accurate, but the background is yellow. If you tweak the raw file you could bring about some balance but neither is quite correct. By gelling the flash, you match all the colors and then you can achieve a balance across the scene.

Here are a couple of examples of gelled and ungelled.

I used a warmer gel on this one. Not quite perfectly balanced in the background (note the slightly yellow light fixtures) but much better than without the gel.

Great explanations. Thanks.

mulchie wrote in post #12418944
Very helpful points here.
I am almost exclusively shooting in RAW, so can I presume this means the gel/light balance issue is moot? I prefer addressing temperature etc. in pp.

If you do not gel the flash to match the type of lighting that makes up the ambient light, you can never get the whole image color-balanced. There's nothing more frustrating to deal with than mixed light types if you don't do something up front to reduce the light quality differences.

Any recoos on gels?