Need External Flash Help!

[heartfeltgreetings]

Is anyone out there today? Need some help quickly! I have a photo shoot today (family of 6, ages 8-4). I purchased a Nikon Speedlight (I shoot the D90) yesterday and have no clue, really, how to use it productively. I want to give it a try today because we'll be shooting indoors (we have 10 inches plus of snow here & it's about 12 degrees). Can someone give me a quick shoutout about how I should set my camera settings? I'll be using a Tamron 28-70 (also purchased yesterday) lens. We are shooting some portraits for their Christmas card. Please direct me if you can....thanks!

[zona5101]

Originally Posted by heartfeltgreetings

Is anyone out there today? Need some help quickly! I have a photo shoot today (family of 6, ages 8-4). I purchased a Nikon Speedlight (I shoot the D90) yesterday and have no clue, really, how to use it productively. I want to give it a try today because we'll be shooting indoors (we have 10 inches plus of snow here & it's about 12 degrees). Can someone give me a quick shoutout about how I should set my camera settings? I'll be using a Tamron 28-70 (also purchased yesterday) lens. We are shooting some portraits for their Christmas card. Please direct me if you can....thanks!

put it on top, turn it on, put the camera on program - the camera is smart enough to know what to do - if you got an SB600 or sb900 would be good to rotate the head and bounce the light off the wall/ceiling.

[candleman]

>headache<

good luck

what did you buy, sb400/sb7000/sb600/sb900 ?

I would suggest that you learn how to use it before ruining a shoot with it.
Shoot the way you know and thus you won't waste these peoples time.

however, if you insist on using it indoors.

1. turn any incandescent light sources off, (you don't want to mix colour temperatures) and open the curtains to let natural light in
2. use spot metering off a face, and adjust your flash exposure compensation to roughly -1.0
3. turn the flash head to bounce off a ceiling or wall behind you or 45 degrees up,
(don't get too close and bounce off the roof or you will create racoon eyes) ~not possible with the SB400
4. take a few testshots, adjusting your flash exposure compensation to suit.


if there is a white wall adjacent to the family, you cound bounce the light off the wall and thus create a softbox tyoe effect.. you would need to increase to +1.0 on the speedlight for that.


..................all the best,
but my advise is stick with what you know.

[inkista]

I'm more with candleman: the day of a shoot is not the time to learn how to use a flash (or a new lens). Stick with what you know. Learn the flash for the next one. It usually takes a while to learn your way around new gear. I generally don't even feel close to confident with a new lens until I've shot with it at least three or four times. And with on-camera flash and bouncing... I've been a very slow learner.

But if you're going to go ahead anyhow, then zona's advice is good: stick the flash in iTTL mode, bounce it, and learn to ride the exposure compensation dials. As candleman indicates, bouncing will eat up light, so you typically will have to increase the FEC.

When bouncing, figure out where you'd want your softbox studio light to be, then aim the flashhead in that direction. As an alternative to turning off incandescent lighting, you could also gel the flash to be more orange to match the ambient light, but I doubt you've got time to run out and find a sheet of CTO. You may also want to flag the flash to avoid having any of the light coming from on-camera.