Might Market In China

[rpcrowe]

I'd appreciate any insight or tips regarding the following. Thanks in advance...

I am traveling to China in April. IMO, one of the most interesting characteristics of Chinese Culture is the night markets where everything is sold, especially food. I have seen very few really good images of this type of market and think that it is because the vendors and food are most often lit from behind with incandescent (and occasionally fluorescent) lights.

I want to use flash but, do not want to make it look like the stall has been lit with a flash. I am thinking that I want to use flash primarily as a fill to illuminate the vendors.

I will be using a 40D camera and a 550EX flash which I intend to bounce into a Joe Demb Flash Diffuser Pro (since there is no ceiling off which to bounce).

I am thinking that I will shoot RAW in manual exposure mode with the flash in E-TTL. I am also thinking that I will place a filter over the flash head to balance out the color temperature (orange for incandescent and green for fluorescent) between the flash and the ambient light. Then I can work with the color temperature of the entire image.

The IS on my lens will allow me to get a sharp imagery at relatively slow shutter speeds and I don't think that I will have to go below 1/60 or 1/30 second at f/2.8 or increase my ISO far above ISO 400 or 800. The vendors are not moving significantly so IS should really help. Of course, I'd rather have a bit of noise rather than a fuzzy image. Noise can be corrected with post processing.

I am open for suggestions. I have inserted an image which illustrates the type of photography I am talking about.

[OsmosisStudios]

Drag the shutter and drop the flash power.
Use a slower shutter speed to get the ambient light (~1/30s) and use a very very weak flash to just give a hint of pop. You could also use a gel on the flash to mimic ambient light.