[miked70s]

Dear all experts

Just came across an opportunity to help my friend to shoot wedding dinner (Chinese Style). I used Nikon SB800 with 17-55mm lens. The out come was ok but not that stunning. This is my settings all the night:

Shooting mode: Manual
Aperture: 3.5 or 4
Shutter: 1/125, sometime 80 for less movement objectives
ISO: 200
Flash: AA / TTL

Anything wrong? The most query that I want to ask is, do I need to adjust the ISO? I find that the SB800 has whole lot of functions to play around with. I am still learning.

Please comment and give me a word to adjust mu skill. Thanks

[bikram]

What's wrong with your photos? Is it too dark or too bright? Can you post some photos to see see??

[pongyee]

What do you want from your pictures other than OK?

And in your view, what causes a stunning effect? Is it colour, picture quality or something else?

[miked70s]

Dear guys,

Thanks for the prompt response. My findings are:

-Human faces are not that sharp with a bit of noise.
- The color is not so solid. I used RGB Ia
-Since the ceiling was in amber light, I used white card for the flash relection. Would that be the casue?
- Any better recommendation if I move ISO to high level?
- Should I need to use TTL BL or jsut TTL or AA is fine

Correct myself that stunning mean a professional kind and not really refer to some artifical effects. Sorry for my confusion.

Honestly speaking, I find it hard to manage Flash shooting. Any materials or case studies that I can reference in order to improve that.
Thanks

[peterchan04]

係酒家... 17-55mm 鏡... 用 f3.5 , f4.0 .... iso200 + flash

點解吾用 f5.6, f8, f11.... 光圈 ?

f3.5 好似 光佐 d .... color washed out ?

[miked70s]

Peter,

Wow, you ring my bell, thanks!

Should the ISO is a constant factor, no need to care? Thanks

[chris_kts]

There is an article posted by busfan that I still keep today. Post here for your reference:

http://www.dcfever.com/forum/read.php?f=1&i=379535&t=379535

Speaking of ISO and shutter speed, you may want to set to ISO 400 with a slower shutter speed to avoid the corner areas of the photos getting dark. A well exposed photograph versus a dark-cornered photograph is what separates the pros from the casuals. Enjoy :)

[chris_kts]

Given that the BG light is already not enough, why use F8 or F11 ? Well only if your camera supports ISO 6400 or 10000 ;)

[peterchan04]

both ISO and aperture values affect exposures with flash.... at full manual mode.... use GN of flash (based on ISO100) and distance from object to calculate preferrable aperture.

If the ambient light is bright enough, i would prefer ISO100 with flash (less noise).

[kingkonghk]

可以唔駛f8, f11, 我用過iso400, f2.8, flash -3, slow sync都ok

[miked70s]

Thanks all. I learnt a lot. Next time should be better. Excellent article from fanbus.

[Rol]

Bounce flash is good at indoor but also has shortcoming - the light may not be evenly distributed on the photo, or leave shadow at bottom side of human face as most light go from top (ceiling) to bottom. Using flash diffuser / bounce card can help for more even distributed light.

But for better effect, need to absorb some more natural light (ISO200 and 1/125sec absorb too less natural light), also F3.5 can't get too sharp image. Try to use 1/40 sec, ISO400, F5.6 or higher ISO..

You may think the amber light from Chinese restaurant is harmful. So need to manually set the white balance to 4800 - 4200K depend on situation. The auto / flash white balance default at the DSLR doesn't work at this complicate light source environment.

For more better effect, can use double flash : main flash for bouncing ceiling, slave flash direct strike. As the slave flash just compensate the shadow generated from bounce flash, so need to manually -EV at the slave flash.

When you adjust the boucning direction / output of multi flash, plus properly absorbing the natural light, you will get more surprise effect.

Before this, you should study your manual how to use FV lock, TTL BL mode, basic thing first.