Shooting with Speedlite 430 EX

[tamugal98]

Hi!

I would be so grateful if someone could help me. I have been shooting only using natural light for the past couple of years. I have a very good grasp of shooting in manual mode - I understand ISO, shutter speed, etc. but I'm at the point in my career where I've been asked to do a few events and I have to shoot indoors.

I have a Speedlite 430 EX, but I have no idea how to adjust my settings when using the flash. Could someone please give me a cliff notes version of how the flash will affect what I put my settings on? I realize a lot of factors come in to play, but I just need some basic guidance when using artificial light.

I really appreciate it!

Allison

[inkista]

Hoo boy. This is gonna be a long one. (And seriously? This IS the Cliff Notes version). Flash ain't trivial. It makes the exposure triangle easy to explain by comparison.

The site you want is Planet Neil. Neil van Niekerk is a wedding photography who shoots both Canon and Nikon and gives a lot of good information about on-camera flash techniques. He's also condensed the basic information from the website into a book, if you prefer reading off paper instead of a screen.

There are several confusing issues when you start out with flash for the first time.

The first thing to know is that the flash will behave differently depending on what shooting mode your camera is in, and how you have the custom functions for flash set up on your camera body.

If you're in green box auto or P mode, the flash will behave mostly as you'd expect from P&S cameras: the flash is considered to be the main source of illumination, and the photo's exposure will be set to use it as such. Whatever is lit by the flash is going to appear in the photo, and everything else (ambient light) is going to go to black.

This is something it takes a while to grok: whenever you use flash, you're using two sources of illumination that will expose differently. And those two exposures combined become your photograph. The first source is your flash, but the second source is your ambient: all the existing/available light that isn't coming from the flash. And you can balance those two things against each other. There's no single "correct" combination of exposure settings to get here, as there is with ambient-only photography.

If you're in Av or Tv mode, the balance flips the other way to what's known as "fill" flash. Your camera will assume the ambient light should take precedence, and you only want to flick out a bit of light from the flash to lift the shadows. The majority of the balance will be towards the ambient illumination, and not the flash.

The custom settings for the shutter speed you want with flash while in Av mode can be used to push the balance back the other way.

It's only in M mode that you can take full control and balance however you wish.

Here's the deal.

You can control the amount of ambient illumination in your shot by using the three controls you're already familiar with: iso, aperture, and shutter speed. And these three things work the way you expect them to.

But. With flash, only iso and aperture are going to work the way you expect them to. Increasing either will increase both the ambient light, and the flash's light. But using a slower shutter speed will only increase the ambient light. It will have no affect on flash illumination, because the flash burst is much faster than the shutter speed.

Secondly, if you're not using high-speed synch, you have an upper limit to the shutter speeds you can use. This is because shutters work by sweeping a gap between curtains across the sensor. As the shutter speed increases, the gap gets narrower and narrower. And at some point, that gap gets smaller than your sensor, so when the flash burst gets off, only a portion of the sensor is uncovered, and the flash's light only hits part of the sensor--not the whole thing. You end up with black bars at either the top or bottom (or both) of your frame. Your X-sync speed (usually 1/200s or 1/250s) is the fastest you can go and still have the whole sensor lit by a single flash burst.

High-speed sync overcomes this by using multiple flash bursts timed to go with the gap's travel across the shutter, but this drastically reduces your flash's power, so you won't get as much light.

In addition (I know. I know), the flash illumination has two more controls: the power output you set it to use, and the distance of the flash from the subject.

Basically, the upshot of all this is you want to shoot with the camera in M mode when you're using a flash so that you can control the ambient/flash balance. You may also want to shoot with the flash in M mode for consistency and control (the E-TTL mode of the flash is like controlling the flash's power output the way that P mode controls exposure on the camera).

The shortcut most folks use is to control the flash's power with their shutter speed. The faster your shutter speed, the more the balance goes towards the flash and away from the ambient. But you really need to have clear how all your settings affect both the flash and the ambient to really control it.

To increase your ambient light without messing with your flash illumination, use a slower shutter speed.

To increase your ambient light AND your flash illumination together, increase your iso or your aperture.

To increase your flash illumination without changing the ambient, increase your iso or aperture, and then use a faster shutter speed by the same number of stops to compensate.

Or increase the flash's power output.

Or move your flash closer to the subject.

My first piece of advice to anyone learning to shoot flash is to be absolutely sure you're comfortable shooting in full Manual mode and that you can mentally swap stops among iso, aperture, and shutter speed first. If you can't equate moving from 1/100s to 1/200s as also moving from f/4 to what f-number, you need to work on that first.

So, my basic advice:

If you have no time to learn, just put the camera on P. If you have half a second and prefer Av mode, change the Custom function setting for the shutter speed in Av to be 1/200s.

If you have a tiny bit of time to learn, put the camera on P, and point the flash at the ceiling, 45° ahead of you, and bounce. (Or, if you're good at playing bank shots and calculating angles, learn to point the flash to where you wish your softbox was).

If you really want to learn, buckle up, go hit Planet Neil. And if you're a red pill vs. the blue pill kinda person, you'll also want to hit the Strobist.

[tamugal98]

Wow Inkista! Thank you so much for your valuable information. I really appreciate you taking the take for such a well thought out reply to my post.

It all makes total sense. I have been doing a lot of research - both online and studying the nitty-gritty of the manuals trying to make sense of all the settings on the flash.

This weekend I'm going to be going on a press junket for a city nearby, shooting new hotels, restaurants and specifically a hot air balloon festival.

I just bought a new wide-angle lens, a Canon 16-35 mm 2.8 L (and I shoot with a 5D body), which will work beautifully photographing wide shots of these new swanky hotels. I just started getting a little panicky, though thinking about lighting and how to compensate if there is little. I am bringing my tripod so that is definitely a good thing. My goal is to really work the light, b/c I know my lighting equipment for shooting a huge room is not going to suffice, but I'm going to make the most of it. I really want to focus on the ambient lighting, so your suggestions will be put to good use, I hope!

With all that being said...I should put my flash on full-power, put my camera on Manual mode - keep my shutter speed low (1/100?), keep my ISO low to reduce graininess and reduce my f/stop to have a wider depth of field, so the entire room is in focus? Am I right in my thinking?

Another question, since I have your attention! The balloon festival is at sunset. What are your thoughts on exposure and settings to get a beautiful shot using only ambient lighting? (b/c the flash would do nothing good all things considering, I'm assuming...???)

Thanks again. I'm printing this email. It will be a great reference when I'm doubting what to do!

Allison Andrews
jallisonandrews.com

[inkista]

Originally Posted by tamugal98

I just started getting a little panicky, though thinking about lighting and how to compensate if there is little. I am bringing my tripod so that is definitely a good thing.

Yeah, that's gonna be tough, especially going that wide.

Flash spread also affects power. And you guessed it, the narrower the spread, the farther the light will travel. This is why folks buy monolights instead of speedlights.

With all that being said...I should put my flash on full-power,

Actually.... no. Full power is sort of an emergency thing. Remember, you have a tiny little speedlight that's powered by AAs. You want to get every bit of efficiency you can from this tiny little light. Full power here, is probably not going to be useful for you as letting the ambient do the heavy lifting. You can't possibly light the room with one speedlight on-camera. You may want to use E-TTL if you're going to be doing a run'n'gun event thing, and let the camera's metering figure out what flash power to use. But consistency is something you'll want to watch. Use the FEC settings.

Remember, too, that shooting full power will require longer for your flash to recharge. If you're event shooting, you may miss shots if you're blasting out more power than you need.

put my camera on Manual mode - keep my shutter speed low (1/100?),

Well, depends on how fast folks are moving. But to be kind to your AAs (and you will want to bring charged up spares), keep below your maximum sync speed. What body are you using?

keep my ISO low to reduce graininess

Nope. Keep your ISO high. That's how you reduce the power you need to grab from your AAs, and stay within the speed limit. This is like any other low-light shooting. To avoid noise, you want to make sure you don't underexpose. Shoot RAW to give yourself some leeway. This is about balancing out what light you've got. And it's never enough. A typical situation most folks will do is shoot a stop or two under the ambient, and then use flash more like fill.

and reduce my f/stop to have a wider depth of field,

No. Again, you're going to put strain on your flash and on the ambient if you do everything you're listing. The less you rely on the ambient, the more you have to rely on the flash. And your speedlight is limited. Especially since it's only the 430EX. Try and walk the line between having more aperture than you need, and getting enough light for the exposure.

...so the entire room is in focus? Am I right in my thinking?

If you just want a shot of the room and you don't care so much about the people in it? I'd say use the tripod and do a long exposure with just ambient with the settings you state above.

One other important thing I forgot to mention: you want to gel your flash to match the color of the ambient light for white balance. That is, if you're in an ambient situation where you'd use tungsten white balance on your camera? Gel your flash orange so it will match the ambient light. That way, when you do white balance correction, everything will match. Otherwise--hello white balance nightmare.

Another question, since I have your attention! The balloon festival is at sunset. What are your thoughts on exposure and settings to get a beautiful shot using only ambient lighting?

Have the sun set behind your back.

Ok, just kidding. With huge dynamic range issues like this, you typically use the flash as fill in order to lift the shadows up closer to the highlights, so you can get everything inside your camera's dynamic range. Kind of like doing tone-mapping from HDR in-camera.

[tamugal98]

Ok, so basically everything I would normally do in ambient light w/o a flash I'm going to do the same, but using a flash. Because I normally would bump up my ISO, increase my aperture, and adjust my shutter speed depending on movement in a low-light situation.

(For these hotel shots, not interested in people so lower shutter speed will work.)

If you have time, can you explain a little more on "geling the flash"? Is the "orange" just a setting I change on the flash? And also are you saying white balance isn't overrated?

Also if I shouldn't put my flash on full-power how low should I go? Or will I just need to play around with it ti figure it out?

I've never shot in RAW... Is there a real advantage to it specifically regarding lighting?

Last question...do you live in the Dallas area and free this wknd?! I need help! lol

[inkista]

Originally Posted by tamugal98

Ok, so basically everything I would normally do in ambient light w/o a flash I'm going to do the same, but using a flash. Because I normally would bump up my ISO, increase my aperture, and adjust my shutter speed depending on movement in a low-light situation.

Yup. Just think of it as being able to add extra light where you want it, not so much as replacing the light that's there.

If you have time, can you explain a little more on "geling the flash"?

A gel is a colored piece of transparent plastic you put over a light to give a specific color cast. If you were shooting under incandescent lights, you'd use a piece of orange gel over the flash so that its light would be as orange as the ambient lighting, so that when you white balance corrected, everything would be the same color.

Flash tends to be slightly blue. If you didn't gel the flash, when you corrected for the orange in the ambient, then the flash illuminated bits of the photo would turn a bluer blue.

And also are you saying white balance isn't overrated?

White balance is vital.

Also if I shouldn't put my flash on full-power how low should I go? Or will I just need to play around with it ti figure it out?

This is like exposure settings. It depends on how much light you've go to work with and what settings you want to use. It's all about tradeoffs. Experimenting ahead of time might be a good way to see what "neighborhood" you want to be in.

Or, you could just use E-TTL. With E-TTL, the camera sends out a "preflash" pulse of light from the flash of a known brightness, and meters it. It then adjust the flash power depending on the result of the metering. As you should know from ambient light photography, as the scene changes, your metering changes, and it can be a less than accurate way of setting stuff.

I've never shot in RAW... Is there a real advantage to it specifically regarding lighting?

Yes, particularly when it comes to white balance adjustment. RAW is the raw data from your sensor. JPEGs are processed versions of this raw data, where color information is often discarded in the assumption that what you got in camera is what you want. With RAW, you can, in essence, change the white balance setting after you take the photo, and you won't lose anything.

If you've ever accidentally left the white balance setting in Tungsten, and then shot a whole mess of bluish pictures, the point of shooting RAW becomes clear. Also, if you've ever accidentally shot stuff in B&W mode...

Last question...do you live in the Dallas area and free this wknd?! I need help! lol

Sorry. As my location line says, I'm two timezones away in San Diego. Good luck!

[candleman]

Originally Posted by inkista

One other important thing I forgot to mention: you want to gel your flash to match the color of the ambient light for white balance. That is, if you're in an ambient situation where you'd use tungsten white balance on your camera? Gel your flash orange so it will match the ambient light. That way, when you do white balance correction, everything will match. Otherwise--hello white balance nightmare.

+1

correcting the colour of the flash to your ambient light is very important.. it's pretty easy and saves insane amounts of time in PP

[candidrachel]

Thanks for all the info guys its helped me too! I have the 430ex flash too and the manual that comes with it is completely crap! It just doesn't give any proper instructions on how to use it. I've had it for a few years now but I shoot primarily in AV mode and when I use the flash in AV mode the shutter speed becomes soooo slow and any movement such as people walking past comes out blurred so I have to change to P to get the shutter speed fast enough but then I lose the background or have to fiddle around with the flash settings dialling down.

Thank you for all your indepth info. I have visited strobist.com and that gave me brain ache so I'll see if Planet Neil is any better. I need instructions like you press this button, then you change this setting without too much technical jargon.

[PurpleQuest]

I have read almost all of the posts about white balance and speedlite flash and am still confused. When you know you will be using a speedlight (430EX II) or flash, do you set the camera's custom white balance while using the flash or without it?

(Yes, I agree with Inkiska that I should have a better handle on my manual mode before using a speedlight but that ship has already sailed so I'm trying to learn it anyway. I don't have a gel and don't want to add another piece of gear until I learn to work with what I have)

[PurpleQuest]

Inkista.... please accept my apology for spelling your name wrong