Shooting at a Car Show with EOS300D and 550ex Speedlite.

Please help a beginner!
I have just bought a Canon Speedlite 550ex and plan to take it to a car show on Sunday (Motor Show Live at the NEC birmingham)
I promise everyone that I will learn to use it but I would like some simple advice to get me going on Sunday.
What I want to know, in simple terms, is what setting would be best to have the EOS and flash set to for photographing the cars and the lovely ladies that will be there also. E.g. should I use P mode, what ISO setting etc? I have a simple Sigma 18-50 kit lens and a Sigma 70-300 1:4-5.6 APO.
As I said I am a complete beginner but I would like to come back with some good pictures which if you are interested I will post to a web site.

Many Thanks

Daz

Bump

For your first walk around the show, set the camera onto full automatic (green box) mode, moderate ISO (400?) with the flash set for full automatic E-TTL. Your camera and flash will coordinate what they will use for settings (like 1/60 shutter). Once you get a dozen shots or so, then try the second pass with P mode. Push your shutter speed faster, like 1/200 max, and see what difference that makes.

For your third pass, try setting the camera onto Av mode and try the same things. If you have time, leave everything the same, but slow the ISO down to 100 and see what effect that has.

For now, you don't need to fool around with the flash's high speed sync mode. That is mostly for a moving target with a very fast shutter.

---Bob Gross---

Thanks Bob I will try your suggestions

I'm sure you are going to get a number of different answers but for what it may be worth.

Set the ISO to 400. Set the mode to TV. Set the shutter speed to 1/125. Make sure the master-slave switch at the bottom near the foot is set to off. Turn on the flask with the slide switch set to SE. Shoot.

The correct ISO will be determined by the flash to camera distance so you should be prepared to adjust it higher if your pictures are too dark or (unlikely) lower if they are too light. But be sure to shoot some tests before you take any serious pictures.

Bruce

Skids wrote:
Please help a beginner!
I have just bought a Canon Speedlite 550ex and plan to take it to a car show on Sunday (Motor Show Live at the NEC birmingham)
I promise everyone that I will learn to use it but I would like some simple advice to get me going on Sunday.
What I want to know, in simple terms, is what setting would be best to have the EOS and flash set to for photographing the cars and the lovely ladies that will be there also. E.g. should I use P mode, what ISO setting etc? I have a simple Sigma 18-50 kit lens and a Sigma 70-300 1:4-5.6 APO.
As I said I am a complete beginner but I would like to come back with some good pictures which if you are interested I will post to a web site.

Many Thanks

Daz

I'd set the camera to manual and start there. Pick an exposure of something like 1/60 @ f8 with ISO 200. Check the exposure to see how much ambient light is in the room. It's probably under this but you have to be careful not to overexpose if the cars are under brilliant lights.

Set the flash at E-TTL and take a picture. Immediately review the shot on the camera with the histogram enabled. Does the exposure look good? If the exposure isn't correct you select the SEL/SET button and then use the + or - button to the left of the SEL/SET to increase or decrease the exposure. Take another shot with that flash bias, and review that too.

Keep checking the review screen as you walk around. You may have to reset the flash bias with the +/- any number of times.

You can also drop down the exposure until you see that you are getting a correct exposure with the ambient light. Still use the flash as it'll fill in shadows. Try that. If I was handholding I'd try to keep the shuterspeed over 1/15 even with flash, so you might have to increase your ISO.

Very good post - Its a good way to familiarize yourself with the various exposures that you'll get in that kind of environment. And you'll likely find that there's more than one way to produce good images.

I might add, take an extra set of batteries for the flash and ration your picture quantity to fit the amount of room on the card.

Also, I think that the 18-50 zoom will be much more useful here.

Thanks to everybody for the very useful information.

I have spare batteries for the flash and camera and I have a XSDrive II so card space is not an issue. (I have two 256Mb Cards as well).

Thanks again.

Daz