Just When I Think.....

[Hill Country Hack]

I have a grasp on photograpy. Cold, hard reality comes and slaps me in the face to remind me how much I suck. You don't have to look too hard to still see the hand print.

The set up. Office Christmas party at one of the bosses house. A lovely home with a general soft yellow/light gold hue thoughout. Me with my Canon XSI and 50mm f1.4 and only on camera flash. Geesh....Shot the party in apeture priority at f2.8 with the flash at -1/3, auto WB and ISO all the way to 1600. I Could not get a shutter speed over 1/30. What a mess of VERY noisy and very yellow/gold captures. A complete dissapointment. I did what I could do in PP, they are barely passable as snaps.

I am too embarrased to even post one here for some feedback to hopefully improve next time.

Any general hints besides the obvious of off camera flash?

[Rentham]

Originally Posted by Hill Country Hack

Any general hints besides the obvious of off camera flash?

You're hitting the limits of your gear in that situation and no amount of fudging or trickery will make a huge difference. Sometimes it really does boil down to having the right tools of the job. Having a relatively inexpensive 430EX mounted on the hotshoe and bounced around the room would have made this an entirely difference experience, I think.

[candidrachel]

Originally Posted by Hill Country Hack

I have a grasp on photograpy. Cold, hard reality comes and slaps me in the face to remind me how much I suck. You don't have to look too hard to still see the hand print.

The set up. Office Christmas party at one of the bosses house. A lovely home with a general soft yellow/light gold hue thoughout. Me with my Canon XSI and 50mm f1.4 and only on camera flash. Geesh....Shot the party in apeture priority at f2.8 with the flash at -1/3, auto WB and ISO all the way to 1600. I Could not get a shutter speed over 1/30. What a mess of VERY noisy and very yellow/gold captures. A complete dissapointment. I did what I could do in PP, they are barely passable as snaps.

I am too embarrased to even post one here for some feedback to hopefully improve next time.

Any general hints besides the obvious of off camera flash?

I feel your pain! I get better results with my canon powershot or if I do use either the canon 40d or 550d I have to shoot on P mode to stop any motion blur. Aperture Priority royally sucks in low light.

[mshockley]

I would agree with above on breaking down and getting a speedlight--the 430ex is great in my opinion, and maybe even a cheap little diffuser to put on it. I have a mini softbox type of thingy that slips on my flash head and am finding the results in the type of situation you were in to be quite good. I usually bounce it around the room just as "rentham" is suggesting you try.

Once you have the flash I would go with manual settings and use a shutter speed that your very comfortable holding and moving around at, and let the flash do the work for you. I think you'll find once you own a speedlight you'll wonder how in the world you got by.

[Tim Spencer]

Hill Country:

I have an XS also. When using flash in Aperture Priority, the camera uses the flash to expose the foreground, while trying to properly expose the background by using the appropriate shutter speed. Thus, in low light, you will always get slow shutter speeds when using aperture priority. See page 74 of the manual (screen shot attached). There is also a way to go into settings and prevent this.

Or you can use Shutter Priority, and the flash will sync to 1/200 shutter speed. You can then lower ISO to get rid of graininess. Of course, this means that the background will be dark, but the objects in the foreground will not be yellow and grainy, but properly exposed (as well as an on-camera flash can accomplish anyway).

Canon recommends a tripod when using flash in AE in low light - of course not sutiable in your instance. Maybe suitable for taking posed portraits with say a fireplace in the background.

Help any?

[OsmosisStudios]

Dont muck around in Av. When you use flash, go straight into manual.

[mosgood]

We all start somewhere, HCH. Heck, I just discovered that my off-camera flash has more settings than I previously thought! I was getting really bad (harsh) shadows behind my subjects. Better late than never, I suppose.

Can't recommend a particular speedlight for you since I shoot with Nikon, but there are some compatible brands of SLs that are fairly inexpensive, you don't have to buy a Canon. I also suggest getting some kind of diffuser for it. I like the Lumiquest softboxes. They also fold flat for easy portability. Have heard from some pro-photogs who don't like the velcro-too noisy when being removed in a quiet setting (church weddings). Never had a problem though, I just don't remove it until I've finished shooting.

Edit: If a speedlight is out of the question for you right now....there's some less expensive options for diffusers for your pop up flash. I think you can even make some if you are handy out of plastic milk cartons. Can't have too many options, right?

[SwissJon]

What Os said.. Stay out of auto mode. Control your flash using the camera menus or the menu on the flash. Use the shutter speed to control the ambient light of the room, and the aperture to control the brightness of your subject.

Shutter speed makes no difference at all to your subject (the thing that's being light by your flash) because the flash is very bright and the duration of the flash is much shorter than your shutter speed. What it does make a difference to is how much light is allowed into the lens from things that aren't being lit by the flash, such as the room. It works in exactly the way you'd expect if you didn't have a flash. In fact, turn the flash off and set your speed so that the non flashed picture comes out at the brightness you want your background to be.

Aperture works exactly the same way as you expect it to on your subject.. Close it down, and your subject gets darker, as will your background.

Flash power is how to control the brightness of your subject if you want to use aperture to control depth of field.. The lower the power the darker the subject.. As a by product, the lower the power, the shorter the distance the flash will throw light, so you can open up your aperture, dial down the power on your flash and have a lovely dark out of focus background, or close your aperture and dial up the power on the flash, you throw the light a bit further, and that gets in focus..

Flash photography is quite fun when you get the hang of it, but it's a steep learning curve and takes a bit of practice.

[Hill Country Hack]

Thanks to all who posted. I'm REALLY about to get a speedlight. Doing some shopping around now. To make myself feel better I went out yesterday and took some landscapes.

[autofocus]

HCH, get a speedlight. Here's how a speedlight can light up a room..mounted on camera using Neil V's black foamy thing attached and bouncing off a back wall. Shot on a good old Canon 20D, manual mode, 1/40, 400ISO, f/4.5 at 17mm, flash set to eTTL.