Party Shots

Excellent thread. I cannot believe I never came across it before.

Brownie127 wrote in post #6253374
Pete: No criticism or suggestions whatsoever. You absolutely nailed it perfectly.

Would have been nice to know which one of your fabulous lenses you were using and if IS was in use.

Hi, and thanks.

All my shots were taken with the 5D and 24-105 IS. So, yes IS was a play in a way. Since the flash is used, it tends to freeze and lock into sharpness the nearer subjects, while giving a little motion to the background. IS helps to get the shutter speed way down when hand-held.

Sadly, I have neither 5D nor 24-105 now. I swapped them for a 1D Mk IIN and 24-70. I've not done event photography since, so I have no idea if I can get the same effect.

Pete wrote in post #3820737
I've learnt recently that working with the flash is a combination of two exposures, one for the ambient, and the other lit by the flash. The shots are a balance of the two. I simply went into manual mode, selected settings that allowed the background to be exposed (without the flash), and the ETTL nicely filled in/froze the subjects.

When you say ETTL nicely filled in/froze subject, that's setting your flash ETTlL on and no bounce card?

With average height ceiling, I set camera to M, shutter between 80 or 100 and aperture 5.6 (single subject) and 8 (groups), ISO400. I use FlipIt to bounce off ceilng with manual WB.

My problem is with high celings..Too high to bounce. What settings would you do to allow the background to be exposed without flash? the method I am using, I think, makes the flash the primary light source and have not figured out how to blend them both.

I use to be pathetic with flash photography and the method I use (2nd paragraph) was learned by reading a thread here many moons ago with the help of the thread OP. I cannot thank him enough as I am now very happy with my indoor bounce flash pictures.

With high celings, I am struggling to use flash and the proper exposure to get ambient light.

Any tips would be helpful

Thanks
Patrick

I didn't bounce at all here, the ceilings were too high, or not at all. The idea behind shooting with a high-iso/wide aperture/slow shutter is that the a lot of the ambient light is capture, allowing the flash to act as a fill-in.

Manual mode is the key to blending the two exposures - you want to stop the camera from thinking that it has to do all the work - ETTL does a better job of the situation in these cases. In manual mode (for the settings I used), the camera thinks I'm under-exposing by a large margin. The flash provides the boost in light to get the fully correct exposure.

Great thread. I'm about to go and grab my camera and flash and give it a go myself!

Brilliant work Pete , I must get out there and try this , I have a friend with a Club who want's me to come and shoot But I am afraid that my gear will get damaged

Ok I went to the Club Last night at shot a few how did I do ?

1/20 f5.6 ISO 800 Direct Flash

^^^ Was it that bad

I will post some more later.

Hi Pete! great pictures. Is your principle applicable to even other camera brands, lets say a nikon d40?

EddieX wrote in post #6821625
Hi Pete! great pictures. Is your principle applicable to even other camera brands, lets say a nikon d40?

Yeah, sure it can...!

Pete wrote in post #3820060

If your still working with these guys, congratulate them on their great choice in beer

Taken with Pete's method.

Xmas party. Bounced 580EX II and only one beer.

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Nice, Mitesh - they work well!!

Thanks Pete. More to follow for the new year.

Wish I had a 35L or a 50 1.4 with me.

Ok, thanks pete!

Great results elysium!!