Having hard time with flash during wedding

I dont know if any of you guys have the same problems but i have an extremely hard time with flash during weddings.i have a 580 mark 2 flash.Either i dont know how to use the flash or it just sucks.i cant get a constant exposure.i have to shoot in total manual settings with camera and flash to get something descent,even then i have to check my lcd ever 5 sec if im over exposed or under.im shooting with a canon 40d with a 24-70 sigma.
how do you guys use the flash? what settings do you use? maybe theres something i dont know about.any help is appreciated

Looks like you need to get back to basics and learn flash from the start.

See here: https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=138907

It would help if you could tell us more about your settings and the shooting environment, maybe even post a few sample images. Are you ETTL? What metering mode is the flash using? Does this happen when you're bouncing or direct bare bulb? Does it only happen when your shooting a single person alone in an otherwise very dark room? Have you balanced your flash and ambient exposure at all?

varuj wrote in post #10117332
I dont know if any of you guys have the same problems but i have an extremely hard time with flash during weddings.i have a 580 mark 2 flash.Either i dont know how to use the flash or it just sucks.i cant get a constant exposure.i have to shoot in total manual settings with camera and flash to get something descent,even then i have to check my lcd ever 5 sec if im over exposed or under.im shooting with a canon 40d with a 24-70 sigma.
how do you guys use the flash? what settings do you use? maybe theres something i dont know about.any help is appreciated

The flash doesn't suck.

The flash works fine, as does ETTL if you take the time to learn how it works. Tell us more about how you have problems with it. I find basic flash dead easy, but I usually do a test shot when the scene changes to make sure flash exposure is good. I use manual off camera flash a lot too.

Peacefield wrote in post #10117957
It would help if you could tell us more about your settings and the shooting environment, maybe even post a few sample images. Are you ETTL? What metering mode is the flash using? Does this happen when you're bouncing or direct bare bulb? Does it only happen when your shooting a single person alone in an otherwise very dark room? Have you balanced your flash and ambient exposure at all?

ya i shoot ettl.ive never really found a difference in the metering modes so i dont pay much attention to it,maybe im wrong.it happens both bounce and direct.ussually it happens when theres a couple people.how do you balance the ambient and flash?

here is a shot look how the background people are all dark.how can i fix that? do i lower the shutter speed?

tim wrote in post #10121523
The flash works fine, as does ETTL if you take the time to learn how it works. Tell us more about how you have problems with it. I find basic flash dead easy, but I usually do a test shot when the scene changes to make sure flash exposure is good. I use manual off camera flash a lot too.

i c.what camera setting do you usually use during the reception?

There's no one-fit-all-setting, understanding your exposure and flash is the first step to getting better flashed shots.

Thanks for the sample image; it is uncommonly dark.

The challenge is that the problem could be any one or more of SO many things, it's hard to diagnose. As silly as it sounds you may have just accidentally adjusted your FEC down a couple of stops, never noticed it, and that's why your images are dark.

In the image above, was this flash bounced or direct?

Try Raising the ISO and using the flash as more of a fill light instead of as a main light. You'll get better depth and a more even light in the foreground. Use the longest shutter speed you can and still stop the motion, unless you're looking for motion blur. I shoot a lot of my indoor wedding stuff at 1/30-1/60 of a second. If I think there's a chance of a cake fight, I might take it faster.

Stephen A. Harmon wrote in post #10122399
Try Raising the ISO and using the flash as more of a fill light instead of as a main light. You'll get better depth and a more even light in the foreground. Use the longest shutter speed you can and still stop the motion, unless you're looking for motion blur. I shoot a lot of my indoor wedding stuff at 1/30-1/60 of a second. If I think there's a chance of a cake fight, I might take it faster.

Without question, he needs to better balance his flash and ambient exposures. But beyond that, there's clearly something wrong with how the camera and/or flash are reading and responding to the scene.

It's clear you don't understand exposure, flash exposure in particular. It's not hard, but you do need to have it explained, then it's easy to work out the rest yourself.

Exposure with a flash can be thought of as two exposures:
- The first is for the background, outside the reach of the flash, which is lit by ambient light. So for this scene ISO400 F5.6 1/90th wasn't a good choice. F2.8 1/50th ISO400 would've been better, or F5.6 ISO800 1/50th - those are both guesses. Basically expose your background properly.
- The second exposure is the flash, which is largely automatic, you just set your FEC.

It looks like you either bounced the light from the wall on the right, or used direct flash. That's generally ok, but she's closer to the light than him, which is why he's a bit dark.

If the ceiling was light colored you could've bounced the light off the ceiling, which tends to light the background a little too.

Experiment at home, use a room with one light one, try different subjects, positions, angles, etc. It's quite trivial once you understand the basics I outlined above

At 24mm, 1/90, 5.6 and proper ETTL that shot should have come out much better even at 400 ISO.

Something else is wrong. Is the zoom on the 580ex in manual maybe? It almost looks like a 105mm flash fill instead of a "wide" beam.

Are all your dance photos like this? Surely you got tired of this and compensated somehow. If so what did you do?

RT McAllister wrote in post #10122511
At 24mm, 1/90, 5.6 and proper ETTL that shot should have come out much better even at 400 ISO.

Something else is wrong. Is the zoom on the 580ex in manual maybe? It almost looks like a 105mm flash fill instead of a "wide" beam.

Are all your dance photos like this? Surely you got tired of this and compensated somehow. If so what did you do?

I disagree. In my opinion it's just that the ambient exposure is too low. Just changing to ISO1600 would've made a huge difference.

tim wrote in post #10122586
I disagree. In my opinion it's just that the ambient exposure is too low. Just changing to ISO1600 would've made a huge difference.

Maybe, but the OP said he was having problems shooting direct flash. From 6-8 feet away you should be able to shoot in literally a dark room at 400 ISO, 1/250, f11 and still get a fully exposed pic with 0 FEC. Just the fall-off from the 580 should at least spill into the people in the rear. (It would look like crap though).

So I'm guessing he bounced high & right and the wall/ceiling was either too far away or the colorcast ate up the light.

And there's no way I'd shoot a 40D at 1600 ISO. (Not to open that can of worms again mind you). That leaves 1/30 maybe but I can't shoot that low with dancing.

Or... as Robert says, the FEC was stopped down and he forgot. (I've never done that before ).