Flash/Camera Setup for Backstage events with bad lighting no bounce advice.

[ashmadux]

Behind The Scenes at Fashion Week

I'll be doing my first Fashion Week event assignment. I'll be doing behind the scenes at a number of shows and it can go from very dark to somewhat bright in the working areas. I'm looking for advice as likely not to shoot in manual oh, & I know things will be going pretty fast. I'll be using a 600 X and right now I have a large roguebender. Ill likely have two bodies- a 501.4 on a 5d3and a 35f2 on a 6D (6d high iso should rock here especially)

In these kind of situations with no backlight, is it good to keep the flash set upward and the road with the roguebender and on ETTL? With lighting like that I will tend to keep the camera on Av + 640iso unless there's plenty of light in a given situation. There will also be step and repeat walls but I don't expect many of those especially inside.

I'll be using second shutter sync since the flash will be on camera, and portrait shots I'll keep to a minimum I'm thinking because the rogue bender is really not that great for portrait images.

TTL has been very miss more than it for me and I'll have limited or no ability to test beforehand Even thinking about gary fong tupperware.

All advice from those experience in these situations is highly appreciate it.


+++- Is compact flash better for burst photos? Ive tried a couple of servo burst situations and ive gotten about one sec out of i before it slows down. I use sdxc cards, usually about 40MB write speeds.



Thx

 

[zim]

Great question, really interested in feedback you get, hope you get lots!
I wonder if a good setup would in any way be similar to nightclub photography.

 

[ajfotofilmagem]

The combination of poorly lit environment with hurried models does not give leeway paw test the flash power.

I would use Manual exposure on the camera with ISO1600 and TTL flash, bounced in the ceiling where possible.
If you can, use flash exposure bracketing to increase the chances of hitting the flash power.

 

[Tinky]

I would use a single flash gun, ttl cabled, a stofen or similar and some cto gel (visit lee lighting for an offcut, or get a swatchbook or a single cut sheet off ebay etc)

This will at least get your flash CT to match the ambient light CT.

Add a diffuser gel, or stofen.

I would set the camera to manual and expose so that your ambient exposure is at -1&1/2 to -1. This means that your exposure without flash will be slightly underlit.

Bear in mind your focal lengths, I would probably say use 1/50th. Your flash will freeze the subject motion anyway, and a little bit of ambient background motion blur might make it quite dynamic. Aperture prob something middle of the road to help ad hoc depth of field... say f5.6? Then its just a case of setting your ISO. You can go fairly high with both your cameras, though shoot RAW. Buffer depth goes out of the window when you are waiting for a flash to recycle so don't worry about card speed.

I would use E-TTL, set to -1/2.

Slight under is easier to recover than even slightly over.

With your flash on an E-TTL lead you can keep it quite far away from the axis of the lens, and you can model slightly, throwing the shadows away from directly behind your subject. Have your camera on a long strap though, in case you end up juggling, that way the camera won't fall.

Plan b. A cheap macro ring light, dead basic pc synch type, set the thyristor to A, and follow the quide on the back. Nice fall off. Quick and Simple.