Are These Good Flash Shots, Exposure Wise?

I've been really wrestling with the issues of proper use of on-camera flash light, 580EX, particularly the proper light output to the subject distance in situations where ceiling bouncing is out of the question.

I'm getting more and more requests for such shoots, and the one event that I just completed had a very unsatisfactory results (although the parents apparently liked them very much, or so they say politely!). The following casual and snap shots were just practice (while my boys were practicing their own stuff!), to simulate the actual situation that I'd often find myself in. These were frontal shoots with the flash set vertically onto my diffuser-reflector (like LumiQuest's pocket bounce) that redirects the light about 90% forward.

What I'd like to learn is whether I'm doing the "right" thing in terms of proper exposure that makes the subject look "natural" without too much hint of "flash." Also, I seem to have better results with the flash set to "M." When I use "E-TTL" mode, like the recent event, I got a lot of blown images. I'm pretty sure that's not the "E-TTL" fault but entirely mine, but I'd like to get your opinions as to why that is if you don't mind...


1)

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Raise ISO (open AP, slow shutter, etc).

Meter for ambient and underexpose 1 or 2 stops.

Combine that with flash and it will be quite good.

Exposure wise, I think that those are good shots. I personally like to go for the natural look where you can't tell or is difficult to tell that it was shot with a flash.

Look great to me!

irishman wrote in post #5515985
Look great to me!

I concure.

PacAce wrote in post #5515972
I personally like to go for the natural look where you can't tell or is difficult to tell that it was shot with a flash.

That's my ultimate goal, and I'm trying to figure out the "recipe" for accomplishing it. It's somewhat easier, I suppose, when the subject is "posing" with some time to figure out the exposure with metering or chimping in a controlled environment, but it's an entirely different scenario when the subjects are constantly moving and you have no controllable time on your hand...

I think the second shot, in particular, is excellent.

I think the exposure looks good. The tricky things I see in these pictures are the sheet music and the white shirt. Both of those will throw E-TTL for a loop, but in my experience, they would tend to underexpose the pictures rather than blow highlights. I wouldn't worry about trying to mix ambient light and flash if you aren't already comfortable with flash as the main light source. Personally, when I use flash, I am below the threshold of an acceptable picture using ambient light, so I usually don't worry about it. One of the tricky parts of manual flash is that the room makes some difference in exposure. Even if you are not bouncing flash, a large or dark room tends so soak up light while a smaller, light-colored room tends to reflect some light. However, with enough practice, you'll will be able to nail those manual exposures.

Here is a good link on using flash. Came across it on POTN a while back.

I've read his stuff before and looks great. But not everyone has the money for such "L" type lenses and not everyone wants to open up all the way leaving no depth of field just in case the focusing is a little off. When I can't bounce I use the Lumiquest Pocket Bouncer and when I can bounce it is with the demb flip it or the better bounce card..either way I use a +1 FEC for the 1 stop loss you get when bouncing. Or use the "pre-flash" and no FEC is needed.

Hi SooYoung

Those look like good bounce flash shots to me. Lighting is even and natural looking.

I took a crack at them

In this case the white music sheet does have an effect on the exposure.

This what I came up with

Before:

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Shooting wrote in post #5516766
When I can't bounce I use the Lumiquest Pocket Bouncer and when I can bounce it is with the demb flip it or the better bounce card..either way I use a +1 FEC for the 1 stop loss you get when bouncing. Or use the "pre-flash" and no FEC is needed.

Since bouncing off ceiling often creates shadows under the subject's eyes, I'm thinking why not use the Pocket Bouncer (I used a DIY version of this for the above images) REGARDLESS of whether there's a convenient ceiling or not for all situations that the light output can effectively cover, using my above images as situational examples? Is my reasoning faulty here? In other words, if I had shot the same images that I posted except bounced off the ceiling, instead of frontal with the diffuser, would I have come up with better images?

I suppose it's a subjective thing but I think that the exposure not only looks good but if you check the numbers in Photoshop you can see that the flash and metering did a great job of rendering that white music book as white without any of it being blown out.

If I wanted to push the numbers a little on the white book and get a different exposure on the faces, and I was using evaluative metering then I would just move the white book further to the corner of the frame, meter the new position, lock exposure, recompose and shoot.

TMR Design wrote in post #5516779
Hi SooYoung

Those look like good bounce flash shots to me. Lighting is even and natural looking.

Not as natural as your results... I'm waiting more of yours, by the way.