Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Whoa! I've finally been enlightend

After getting a gig to take the Team picutres for both of Ryan's coach's football teams. I started to do some research on flash photography. The picutres are scheduled to take place about noon so I'm expecting some harsh mid-day Arizona sun, so I'm planing on using a flash to fill in any harsh shadows.
I've really come to like outdoor fill flash I almost never go out without my 550ex atop my camera. The only thing is that I've never had consitent results with it. So I was a bit nervous since I don't want to let the kids down. So after getting hooked on the Strobist site I was planing to fully adopt his techiques which is doing things manually with off camera strobes, But then I found Chuck Gardner's site that had a Canon EX Flash System Overview his tutorials were enlightening, I've had my 550ex for about 4 years and never really knew how it worked with the camera and what Canon's ETTL was all about. Simple things like if you shout in Av mode in bright sun the flash will automatically lower it's output by 1 stop because it assumes you want a fill flash. And that when shooting indoors just put your camera in Manual fix the exposure and let the flash and ETTL do the rest. (This was huge, as I always shot in Av mode and couldn't understand that if the camera knew I had a flash, why would it still set slow shutter speeds as if I had no flash?)
Now knowing that the camera is setting exposure for the ambient light and that the Flash and ETTL is exposing the subject - I got MUCH better results - and I now know what to adjust when I don't get what I want.

I just hope I can digest everything in time for the shoot - I also hope 2 550's will be enough to fill for the whole team.

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