Flash 430EX.

[Spin T2S]

Help needs with taking pics with a flash please.

I bought speedlite 430EX and all I know is put the cam on auto and take pics.

I want to shoot in clubs on manual. What ISO, and ????

[archman]

You should be able to shoot ISO 400 with your camera and get some really good results.

A lot will depend on how far you are away from you subjects, too.

There are all kind of manual settings on the flash...I'm just now starting to play around with mine.

Try to use the "bounce flash" technique when possible--bouncing the light off a wall or object. You'll get less red eye, and the photos won't look so flashed.

Try to review your shots every so often and make adjustments...you may be able to lower the ISO...also check for over or under exposure, and make adjustments.

This was ISO 100, F8 at 67mm. I did have to touch up the red eye a bit.

[Vitahappy]

i have an external flash myself but havent really tried it out yet. when i shoot at the clubs i just use the flash on the cam(olympus sp 500). i leave the iso around 200 and how far you are from the subject does matter. usually 10ft is a good distance. just so you know now, theres a chance the flashy lights at the clubs will fcuk shots up. review them every once in awhile or right after you take it. have fun and lookin foward to see the results

Set the flash to E-TTL and the camera to P or M. Av and Tv sets exposure for the available light and uses the flash as a fill. This will generally give you very slow shutter speeds - which is not necessarily a bad thing, read further.

ISO 200-400 will generally work quite well - 400 when you're pushing the boundaries, especially when bouncing. When conditions permit (white/color neutral ceiling/walls), you will always get more satisfying results by bouncing the flash. This greatly increases the size of the light source, giving you softer results (think sunny day vs cloudy).

Experiment a bit with your cam set to M. Try Apertures from wide open to about 7.1 and all sorts of shutter speeds. You may even want to try "dragging the shutter," a technique utilizing the fact that within a certain range, shutter speed has no effect on flash exposure. Camera on M, and set your aperture so your camera's meter shows an underexposure of 1-2 whole stops at shutter speeds in the 1/15 - 1/2 range. The much briefer (than shutter speed) flash burst will burn a strong impression of the action, but ambient lights will register quite nicely as well, often with dragged highlights, due to the lack of handholdability at those slow shutter speeds. In fact, sometimes deliberately moving the camera can work to your advantage! Best done with first curtain sync and a slow (1/2-2 seconds) shutter, right after the flash fires.

If focusing is a problem, try shooting wide (18-20mm) at f/5.6 and manually set focus to about 8 feet. This will keep everything from roughly 4 to 12 feet in acceptable focus.

Flash exposure compensation at -2/3 or so will probably prevent a lot of blown highlights - again, experimentation is your friend.

Don't rely on any of this to work as a silver bullet - there are just too many variables. Try any combinations you can think of and utilize the LCD preview + histogram!

http://www.digitalfrog.nl/?p=30 may give you additional ideas.

[Vitahappy]

this was about 5 feet away with the cameras flash not external one. it's the original so you can look at the exif.

Attachment 77466

[Nee_Lok]

How do you get the exif info?
I've always wondered about that...

[Vitahappy]

Originally Posted by Nee_Lok

How do you get the exif info?
I've always wondered about that...

if you're using pc and xp:
save the pic onto the hd
right click and click on properties
there is a GENERAL tab and a SUMMARY tad. click on summary and should be there.

if you're using something before xp, it should still be in the same areas. good luck. if no exif come up, then it's not the original version. in that case, ask whoever took the picture about it.

[Nee_Lok]

Ah hah. Thanks dude.

Hot clubbies btw.

[bearcat7777]

Firefox exif viewer: http://ted.mielczarek.org/code/mozilla/fxif/