Need help for indoor/flash/potrait/etc.

[geoffery]

I'm normally a outdoor person because I always dread the flash as I am clueless about them. However now I need to use them and really want to use it correctly.

Before I go on here are the kit that is at my disposal.

Dynax7
24-105, 70-210, 90, 50.
5600HS

I recently (last Saturday) went to KLIM (motorshow 03) to shoot some car/model. The picture is not what I expected. I was using the 24-105mm w/ CPL and 5600HS on auto & wide angel attachment (disfuse effect). I am using Superia 100.

Pictures taken at close range is correctly exposed (both the model(s) & front part fo the car) HOwever the mid section of the car and beyond is fading into darkness... FAST.

I am using a constant shutter speed of 60 @ f4.5-5.6.

I am thinking a few things like slow-sync, higher speed films, shuter speed of 30, 1:2 flash ration (on camera /w 5600 wireless at an angel)and changing into the 90mm f2.8 macro. I choose the 24-105 because I think it gives me all the range that I need.

Advise/critic on both technical & equipments are thankful. :dunno:

 

[Snowcrash]

Step one - use fuji xtra 400.

 

[andylee]

Hello,Did you mention Cir-pl indoors with 100 ISO film?!even if you drop to 8/1000 also not enough....the trick is use 400 iso film as mention by snowcrash and put your cir-pl in your camera bag.

use manual exposure on your camera.adjusting aperture will determine your flash distance coverage,adjusting shutter speed will determine your amount of ambience light you get on your pictures.Minolta flash is design to be TTL in all mode.

ADI flash metering will tell your flash what distance your subject is in focus.but you must decide how much you want your ambience light to be in the pics.the higher the shutter speed, the darker the background will be. background brightness is also dependent on the film use.the higher the ISO you are using, the more you are able to get the background bright without getting your shutter speed to be too low....

 

[alvin]

Hi Andy,
Is there a way to remove the yellowish cast (probably caused by the yellowish lights above) from taking non-flash shots indoor? I was using Press 800, manual 1/30s F2.8. With the no-people shots, I like the lighting, very warm & inviting, but when got people the skin tones are quite yucky. Machum jaundiced.. Can adjusting the camera do something abt it?

I am thinking it could be caused by a slight underexposure. Without flash there is some grain, and I forgot to put the +0.5 EV again With the TTL flash enabled very good. No grain! Amazing!

OTOH, The shots with the flash (bounced) give good skin colours. Well imo. Can't wait for the day I can afford a minolta flash!!!!

 

[andylee]

Ha Ha, go get yourself tungsten filters.they convert tungsten lights to daylight.80A, 80B, 80C filters is to correct the orange cast.

 

[alvin]

Really ah?! WOOHOO! SALVATION!

Then again... 77mm filters are gonna be costly :sweat:

Talking about tunsten filters hor, do they have the same effect as "tungsten balanced film"? How do you identify if the lights are tungsten anyway? The last time the place I took had these whiteish bright lights, minimal casts.

 

[Snapper]

Ha Ha, go get yourself tungsten filters.they convert tungsten lights to daylight.80A, 80B, 80C filters is to correct the orange cast.

Hi Andy ... will this work for Dimage ?

Another question ... you know when you take nightshots of Shenton Way ... there are always some extremely bright spotlights that would be over exposed. Is there any way to filter these spot lights so that they do not spoil the pictures (on the not so bright side)

Thanks/

 

[forbytes]

Hi Andy ... will this work for Dimage ?

Another question ... you know when you take nightshots of Shenton Way ... there are always some extremely bright spotlights that would be over exposed. Is there any way to filter these spot lights so that they do not spoil the pictures (on the not so bright side)

Thanks/

first thing about night scenic photography, turn off the flash and shoot with tripod.

location of bright spots are dependent on the subject environment. no special if you only want to block out certain light at certain location. Perhaps you can do dodging in photoshop. I hope the spelling correct.

A possible way to avoid this at shooting stage is to do the metering on other place instead at the bright spot. Switch the metering mode from matrix or ceter to spot. with spot, you meter at the bright spot once. assume at constant aperture, you get a shutterspeed like say 1/10. next you spot meter another area near to the bright light but not affected by the bright light. take another reading. at constant aperature you get say 1/2.

If we were to shoot at 1/2, the bright light will be over exposed. It may be a good idea to shoot at a shutter in the middle say at 1/4-1/6. Give an take a little. I believe in some control over the exposure rather than to use too much on the matrix metering. My 2 cents.

If I am incorrect please correct me. No offence.

 

[alvin]

Does your digicam have white balance settings? I think it should have some white balance for tungsten lights right? Else use a manual white balance?

 

[andylee]

Really ah?! WOOHOO! SALVATION!

Then again... 77mm filters are gonna be costly :sweat:

Talking about tunsten filters hor, do they have the same effect as "tungsten balanced film"? How do you identify if the lights are tungsten anyway? The last time the place I took had these whiteish bright lights, minimal casts.

Tungsten film I know comes in 120mm format only.tungsten slides in 35mm format,yes.tungsten lights is usually yellowish or orangish.the spotlights in our showroom is tungsten lights.

whiteish bright lights is usually fluorescent lights.minimal cast is because the printers correct the pics for you already.the filters for correcting fluorescent lighting is FL-W or FL-day. there is only one type of tungsten slides and they comes in 3 types of ISO settings.

there is three types of tungsten filters as i've post before.they are use to correct difference types of colour temperature of tungsten lights.if you are not sure of the colour temperature, get the one in the middle, 80B.

 

[Snapper]

Does your digicam have white balance settings? I think it should have some white balance for tungsten lights right? Else use a manual white balance?

thanks will try it out. but the White Balancing is not really very accurate ...

 

[Snapper]

first thing about night scenic photography, turn off the flash and shoot with tripod.

location of bright spots are dependent on the subject environment. no special if you only want to block out certain light at certain location. Perhaps you can do dodging in photoshop. I hope the spelling correct.

A possible way to avoid this at shooting stage is to do the metering on other place instead at the bright spot. Switch the metering mode from matrix or ceter to spot. with spot, you meter at the bright spot once. assume at constant aperture, you get a shutterspeed like say 1/10. next you spot meter another area near to the bright light but not affected by the bright light. take another reading. at constant aperature you get say 1/2.

If we were to shoot at 1/2, the bright light will be over exposed. It may be a good idea to shoot at a shutter in the middle say at 1/4-1/6. Give an take a little. I believe in some control over the exposure rather than to use too much on the matrix metering. My 2 cents.

If I am incorrect please correct me. No offence.

Thanks ANdy ... will try it out ... BTW the 7Hi does not have Matrix Metering ... I thought that Minolta only has 14 Segment ... so far has the difference in the 300 step (7hi) and the 14 segment been great ? Which is better ?

 

[andylee]

Hello Snappie,

Seriously i do not know the difference between these two. :embrass: difference system do things differencely i guess.....

 

[TME]

Hello,Did you mention Cir-pl indoors with 100 ISO film?!even if you drop to 8/1000 also not enough....the trick is use 400 iso film as mention by snowcrash and put your cir-pl in your camera bag.

use manual exposure on your camera.adjusting aperture will determine your flash distance coverage,adjusting shutter speed will determine your amount of ambience light you get on your pictures.Minolta flash is design to be TTL in all mode.

ADI flash metering will tell your flash what distance your subject is in focus.but you must decide how much you want your ambience light to be in the pics.the higher the shutter speed, the darker the background will be. background brightness is also dependent on the film use.the higher the ISO you are using, the more you are able to get the background bright without getting your shutter speed to be too low....

BTW how does adjusting aperture affect flash distance?? Does it mean that if I shoot at f/8, the flash will fire brighter than I shoot at f/2? Does it mean than that if he stops down, the mid section and onwards will get exposed properly?

It seems that Geoffrey is experiencing light fall-off after the mid-section of the car that he is shooting......... the problem is that if he increases the power of the flash, the front would be over exposed and the rear exposed properly...... I guess he has either to take a reading for the front, mid and rear and take the average exposure readings or sitck the cam on a tripod and shoot slow sync........ I like slow sync best cos the flash takes care of the front end which is most important, but the rear gets exposed sufficiently to see clearly but not as bright as the front since the lighting is different anyway as u see it live......

 

[andylee]

What flash are you using??5400 & 5600 will tell you the distance if you change the aperture setting.Remember, TTL will take care of the metering & output of the flash........

ISO 100 with cir-pl and indoors, ask yourself this setup is it ok??

It all depends if the person is very small or big in the pics, if the person is small,TTL may overexpose him cause it takes the whole scene into consideration.eg background too dark or too far.

That is why ADI is here to save you. Minolta's ADI flash metering works in combination with 5600HS(D), 3600HS(D) and (D) lens.The camera calculates a guide number to control TTL flash metering. this guide number is calculated according to distance to subject, ambient light and pre-flash reflectivity of the subject and the background. it allows ADI flash metering system to offer optimum flash metering regardless of the background conditions or the subject's reflectance characteristics.

 

[Zerstorer]

BTW how does adjusting aperture affect flash distance?? Does it mean that if I shoot at f/8, the flash will fire brighter than I shoot at f/2? Does it mean than that if he stops down, the mid section and onwards will get exposed properly?

If he stops down the background will be even darker.

Opening the aperture will increase the flash effective distance.
Lowering the shutter speed or raising ISO will increase the ambient exposure.

It seems that Geoffrey is experiencing light fall-off after the mid-section of the car that he is shooting......... the problem is that if he increases the power of the flash, the front would be over exposed and the rear exposed properly...... I guess he has either to take a reading for the front, mid and rear and take the average exposure readings or sitck the cam on a tripod and shoot slow sync........ I like slow sync best cos the flash takes care of the front end which is most important, but the rear gets exposed sufficiently to see clearly but not as bright as the front since the lighting is different anyway as u see it live......

Unless he is using a manual flash the above will not happen.

In an auto/TTL flash system, the nearest/dominant object will always be correctly exposed as long as it isn't too close.

Assuming that Geoffery wants to keep the polarizor so as to remove reflections from the cars, he needs to do the following to ensure better background exposure.

1)Wider aperture: (this means a brighter lens 50mm f1.7 or 85mm f1.4..etc)
2)Higher ISO film: 400 or 800
3)Lower shutter speed: May have to consider a tripod if shutter speed is less than 1/half focal length.

The wireless flash option sounds like a good idea if you can pull it off.

 

[geoffery]

Thank you everyone for the feedback.

Actually I have forgotten about ambient light therefore the 100 film. The CPL is indeed to remove the reflection.

Again, the frontal part of the pix is well exposed, and only the mid shot to infinity is darkening. Should be the ambient light.

I'll try the slow sync, X-TRA 400, wireless, wider aperature, shots /w & /wo CPL this weekend. I have a friend following me this time so he can help me hold the 5600 for wireless. ah and I am going to use the honeycomb this time around, I use A priority the last time.

Again thanks for the feedback. Will post the results later.

 

[TME]

Thank you everyone for the feedback.

Actually I have forgotten about ambient light therefore the 100 film. The CPL is indeed to remove the reflection.

Again, the frontal part of the pix is well exposed, and only the mid shot to infinity is darkening. Should be the ambient light.

I'll try the slow sync, X-TRA 400, wireless, wider aperature, shots /w & /wo CPL this weekend. I have a friend following me this time so he can help me hold the 5600 for wireless. ah and I am going to use the honeycomb this time around, I use A priority the last time.

Again thanks for the feedback. Will post the results later.

What do u mean use the honeycomb and not A priority? U always are using the 14-segment honeycomb metering sytem what...... it's only the mode of metering that u change. centre-weighted, evaluative or spot mah.....

 

[geoffery]

opps I got mixed up there. I normally use spot metering, never tried honeycomb nor center-weight as I learn to photograph via spot since beginning.

 

[andylee]

opps I got mixed up there. I normally use spot metering, never tried honeycomb nor center-weight as I learn to photograph via spot since beginning.

Huh??

Go try the manual mode, :thumbsup: . remember, shutter speeds is not to be lower than your focal length you are using unless you are using tripods.