Photographing a Conference

[Osprey]

All very new to me. I've been given the opportunity, as assistant photographer, to photograph some important people at a conference this weekend. All photography will be indoors so will mostly be flash photography and will show patrons and guests having a good time (happy snaps) along with some photos of delegates in their "official" roles.

Basically the settings will be auto-everything, as through the night the photos will be transfered directly to be viewed on multi-media screens.

So my question is, how do I get the best performance out of the flash unit (a Canon 580EX) for people photography? Can't have celebs walking around blinded by the light so to speak. :eek:

Cheers, Helen

[Tiberius]

Press the mode button until it says ETTL on the screen on the flash. Then it's all on auto. prob for the best if your camera is on auto.

[smc1377]

Do you have some kind of diffuser? Even something like the following will light up your subjects nicely and not blind them in the process.

http://www.nextag.com/Stofen-Sto-Fen-OM-529241139/prices-html

[rdaw]

Another diffuser option is a piece of paper towel and an elastic band - do some experimenting before you go and decide how many layers of paper towel folded over works properly

[Sime™]

I have a 580ex II (same puppy pretty much) I always wander around with it sorting pointing skywards a bit... ettl and look for nice things to bounce it off...that said, the 580's seem to handle lighting people directly very well... I'm all about the bounce, though...

[jmadigan]

Yeah, either buy or make a diffuser for the flash, tilt it up to about 45-degrees, and flash away with ETTL mode. If the setup allows it, try taking the diffuser off and swiveling the flash head to bounce off the ceiling or a light-colored wall. This turns the whole wall or ceiling into one big diffuser. You may need to try to up the power on your flash to compensate, but don't forget to reset it afterwards.

Blasting away with straight flash will blind people and blow out highlights on their faces. The only time you might want to try this on purpose is if the subject has bad skin and you purposely want to blow out the highlights to hide some of that. Just don't explain to them that that's what you're doing at the time. :)