photography

September 24, 2013 11:39 AM

A friend has asked me to be the photographer at her party Saturday. As a budding amateur, I want to assure I get good shots.

I have done a fair amount of outdoor portrait work. But this will be inside at night with a flash. I have a good 16-80mm Zeiss lens. I have a rotatable flash. I know enough to try to bounce the flash off the ceiling, etc. But I want to do more than leaving it on auto, though walking around shooting people in the moment that may be difficult. Also my friend told me she may want to print some shots, which tells me I might shoot some in RAW rather than Jpeg. I am fairly adept at Lightroom, so I can correct some.
My question is should I just use auto? Or if I try manual what aperture would work in this setting? Using a flash, I assume, would control the shutter.
Thanks in advance.

posted by jtexman1 to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (14 answers total)

Should be lots of fun.

I'd always shoot in RAW; the flexibility it gives you to post process is invaluable.

If you're going to be moving around (as I'm sure you are), I'd really recommend shooting with TTL or ETTL enabled on your camera and flash, if they have it. This causes the flash to deliver a burst of light before capturing the image, which is metered by the camera through the lens ("TTL"). A micro second later, the flash re-fires at the appropriate power level, and the camera takes the picture. Depending on your flash, this may work only if the flash head is facing forward, rather than bouncing. (Side note: remember that if you're bouncing, you'll pick up the color of the wall, so bring gels.) Shooting TTL uses more batteries, since the flash builds up charge as if it needs to discharge at 1/1 each time; it will dump the charge before firing at the required power level, but that battery power is gone. Of course, if you're bouncing, you'll probably lose two stops of light anyway, meaning you'll have to crank the flash to get the light you want, which is also going to drain your batteries.

Personally, I'd shoot on manual with my set my aperture at 5.6. I'd try to stay around an effective 50mm (which is like 35MM if you're using a crop body). Shooting 16MM inside is likely going to give you noticeable distortion.

When you get to the event, set your shutter speed based on how much ambient light you want. So, shoot at 1/60th or whatever to have the (I presume yellow tungsten incandescent) lights show up, or 1/200th to have people enveloped in black, lit only by your flash.

Remember, where possible, to shoot people into a room, not against a wall. You'll get shadows from your flash that won't look good.

Good luck.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 11:58 AM on September 24, 2013 [4 favorites]

My thoughts, generally in agreement with Adm. Haddock, plus:
- I'd go with aperture priority mode; keep the aperture wide open and let the camera determine the length of exposure.
- If you have the ability on your camera, set it to "Second-Curtain Flash", or whatever it's called on your camera. That'll make any motion blur look a little more intentional, like a motion trail.
- Play around with reflectors and diffusers. I've had good luck pointing the flash straight up, with a small white card rubber-banded to the back side, so you get a little direct reflection added to your broad ceiling reflection.
- Any chance of borrowing a 2nd flash? Set it to slave mode and set it somewhere where you can get sidelighting of your subjects in addition to your on-camera flash. That can help add a little depth and avoid the washed-out deer-in-the-headlights look.
Have fun!
posted by jeffjon at 12:02 PM on September 24, 2013

I want to do more than leaving it on auto

Ask yourself why. No sarcasm: is it because you want to take this gig seriously, and you will feel like a fraud if you aren't using manual like a grown-up photographer? Or is there some concrete reason why you want to "do more"?

Don't misunderstand, I don't shoot on auto and I encourage you not to, generally speaking. If you're comfortable in manual, then by all means, shoot in manual. But your question gives the impression you aren't. And if that's the case, then my advice is that the first time somebody has asked you to photograph their party is probably not the wisest time to experiment with your camera settings. If you're most comfortable on auto and you get good results, use auto. Focus on doing the job well. Expand your knowledge base afterward, on your own time. (And don't jump straight from auto to manual. Learn aperture priority first, if you're a portrait shooter.)

Imagine your friend is paying you. What would she be paying for? Not a photographer who shoots in manual. She's paying for photos. You're a skilled photographer, presumably, and she's paying for the "skilled" parts of that: your sense of composition, your awareness of light, your ability to create a proper exposure through whatever mode—and yeah, often, your equipment. She wants those ingredients because of how they cooperate to create good photos.

Definitely shoot in Raw. No offense to anybody who shoots in JPEG, but I don't really get it. It's like shooting black-&-white photos using a black-&-white mode on your camera, rather than converting color images in post. It's letting dumb software impede your professional and artistic judgment.
posted by cribcage at 12:08 PM on September 24, 2013 [6 favorites]

If it's an important event, don't do it.
• You'll miss being there (as in being in the moment) if you are doing a good job.
• If you screw up, and that's an easy thing to do, your friend will hate you forever. Not as much as if you screwed up a wedding shoot, but still.
• Do you really have the equipment to do a really good job? Because if it's low light and you are using a flash on-camera... well, don't go there.

I'm sorry if this sounds negative, but from the questions you ask, you may well be in over your head.
posted by cccorlew at 12:36 PM on September 24, 2013 [1 favorite]

Only shoot RAW if you're going to process everything (which you should be doing anyway).

My question is should I just use auto? Or if I try manual what aperture would work in this setting? Using a flash, I assume, would control the shutter.

I don't really understand what you mean when you are assuming that flash would control the shutter. You can shoot in aperture priority mode on your camera and set your flash to E-TTL. You can shoot with both the camera and the flash on manual. You can shoot with both set to auto.

Your best bet might be to put the flash into E-TTL and your shooting mode on aperture priority. Make sure you are not shooting above your cameras sync speed, and you should be good to go. Using autofocus in low light can be difficult, but the flash should actually help with that. White ceilings and walls are wonderful, wonderful things, but you cannot count on having anything to bounce off of. Some flashes have a small bounce card built in, but an index card and a rubber band do well in a pinch.

Bring more batteries than you think you will need.
posted by inertia at 12:36 PM on September 24, 2013 [1 favorite]

Seconding shooting in aperture priority. In manual you're going to be constantly fiddling with your camera, missing shots.
posted by cnc at 1:17 PM on September 24, 2013

Yes, shoot in RAW, it's amazing what you can fix in post with RAW images. Over or under exposed by a couple stops? No problem. RAW makes fixing a lot of things easier, but you still can't really fix a missed focus or blur. I'd recommend taking more than one photo of each shot you're trying to get. Buy another memory card (a nice fast one, I like the Sandisk Extremes), they're cheap (16GB for less than $30) and you can use them over and over again. Depending on your camera a 16GB card will store over 300-500 photos. Use it. At the end of the night the free space on your cards will get you nothing.
posted by borkencode at 1:36 PM on September 24, 2013

Seconding shooting in aperture priority. In manual you're going to be constantly fiddling with your camera, missing shots.

Shutter speed is not important to exposure when shooting with a flash; shutter speed just balances ambient light with the flash, since the flash illuminates the scene in 1/10,000 of a second.

By shooting in manual mode with E/TTL, the flash automatically sets the amount of light required based on the aperture. You can then just set the shutter speed and leave it fixed once you find a balance between ambient and flash you like.

If, instead, you shoot aperture priority, you run the risk that the camera will let varying amounts of ambient light in, which can look very odd. Your subjects should be uniformly lit from the E/TTL flash, but in one shot, they might appear in a warm scene from a slow shutter speed (lots of ambient tungsten) or weirdly green/magenta (lots of ambient fluorescent, cycling at 60hz), or in a field of black (high shutter speed).
posted by Admiral Haddock at 1:42 PM on September 24, 2013

Make sure you get at least one shot of every single person there and then you can relax and take candids at will. Nothing worse than looking at party pics and realizing that the photographer didn't get a SINGLE SHOT of you all night.
posted by ColdChef at 3:49 PM on September 24, 2013 [1 favorite]

I don't think RAW is as essential as some people seem to. Before you decide to shoot RAW, consider whether the the camera recycle as quickly when shooting RAW as it does when shooting JPEG? RAW generates more data, which fills the buffer faster and takes longer to write out to the flash card. A fast memory card can help, but it only goes so far.

You are much better off getting comfortable shooting with the flash so you get properly exposed images than relying on RAW to save a bad shot anyway.

One tip. Bring a couple of extra sets of batteries for the flash.
posted by Good Brain at 9:48 PM on September 24, 2013 [1 favorite]

If you are also a guest, have someone take a picture of you. Your family and friends will like to see it.
posted by Cranberry at 12:47 AM on September 25, 2013 [1 favorite]

I never shoot RAW, it's too slow and I miss shots. If you've never shot RAW before, an important event is not the place for experimentation.

My advice is just shoot like you normally would. Framing and composition are more important than fancy lighting tricks.
posted by j03 at 6:37 AM on September 25, 2013

Generally speaking, if you're going to be indoors and it's already night, you should shoot in manual mode. Chances are, the lighting isn't going to change on you so you can set your aperture and shutter speed once and then just worry about framing and composition.

When framing, try to position yourself so that there are lights behind your subject.

If you're shooting at the 80mm end of your lens, tilt the flash to a 60 of 45 degree angle so you get some bounce and some forward light from your flash.

Shooting wide open (e.g. f2.8) remember that your depth of field will be shallow. So focus on people's eyes.

Low light is notorious for futzing up your auto focus. If it's too dark, you camera may spend a long time searching for focus. Practice before hand to get a good feel for just how much it slows your camera down. One remedy is to use your center focal point as it will be the fastest for focusing. Just shoot a little wider and crop later in Lightroom.

Good luck and have fun.
posted by inviolable at 8:53 AM on September 25, 2013 [1 favorite]

In addition to the flash photos, I would up the ISO some, open the lens up and use existing light for some.

Remember existing light is how ~WE~ see things. The photos end up looking much more natural than with a flash. How high you can go depends on your camera. In this situation I use a range of ISO 400 to 1,200 and work at f2.8. If I lower the ISO it is too hard to hold steady (without tripod/monopod/etc.), and if I go over ISO 1,600 (mine goes to ISO 51,200) the quality goes down.

You could also set flash power to a percentage, 30%, 50% power etc., and try a lower power flash photo that still provides some existing light benefits.

Test this at home with a friend if needed.
posted by Leenie at 9:51 AM on September 25, 2013