Using (Fill) Flash

[privatebydesign]

"And as for the discussion about off-camera flash and gels and such ... please continue and enjoy your discussion folks but it is obviously not of practical application to me!"

And there in lies the problem I have with so much of RLP's advice opinion, whilst it might be valid or correct information in and of itself, he seems incapable of parsing his knowledge into relevant information for the OP. The answer to every lens question is not 135 f1.8 IS or 50 f1.2. The answer in this thread is not to buy green gels. This has sometimes made me appear to be on a RPL witch hunt, and that absolutely is not the case, but I am passionate about pointing people in the right direction for them and can be outspoken if I think they are being led astray, of course I make mistakes, I have made several howlers here on CR, but I like to think when I do I just say I am wrong, and I have done that several times.

Interesting use of a blue gel, but as Neuro says, not a generally pleasing outcome from the OP's objective, the guy in the background looks nuclear, the ceiling has been painted out of two buckets of paint that were different colours and one of the main subjects looks unwell. Very far away from the OP's intention. Still interested to see your best use of a green gel, one of the ones you specifically recommended.

 

[RLPhoto]

"And as for the discussion about off-camera flash and gels and such ... please continue and enjoy your discussion folks but it is obviously not of practical application to me!"

And there in lies the problem I have with so much of RLP's advice opinion, whilst it might be valid or correct information in and of itself, he seems incapable of parsing his knowledge into relevant information for the OP. The answer to every lens question is not 135 f1.8 IS or 50 f1.2. The answer in this thread is not to buy green gels. This has sometimes made me appear to be on a RPL witch hunt, and that absolutely is not the case, but I am passionate about pointing people in the right direction for them and can be outspoken if I think they are being led astray, of course I make mistakes, I have made several howlers here on CR, but I like to think when I do I just say I am wrong, and I have done that several times.

Interesting use of a blue gel, but as Neuro says, not a generally pleasing outcome from the OP's objective, the guy in the background looks nuclear, the ceiling has been painted out of two buckets of paint that were different colours and one of the main subjects looks unwell. Very far away from the OP's intention. Still interested to see your best use of a green gel, one of the ones you specifically recommended.

LOL! That's cute PBD. You know, your right! You are very outspoken, to the point of losing the point of the original comments. mrsfotografie now stated about not needing gels, which is fine, but atleast I let the OP know about them as an option for the situations they may be needed in.

I'm not quick to point out minor difference's in tastes in photos but if you must insist on that difference in taste, Your first photo looks worse than a belt-sander on an elephants backside. I have no idea what your trying to convey there. Gel's can't fix a bad idea.

Your second photo is pretty OOF. Unfortunately for you, that's much harder to correct.

 

[privatebydesign]

Is that your best attempt at showing us an image in which you used your recommended green gel to balance ambient? ;D

Here I was having a bad day stuck in Ft Lauderdale airport and you still manage to make me smile, thanks.

 

[RLPhoto]

Is that your best attempt at showing us an image in which you used your recommended green gel to balance ambient? ;D

Here I was having a bad day stuck in Ft Lauderdale airport and you still manage to make me smile, thanks.

The OP has no need for gels. Why would I continue posting about them? Plus, a man of your caliber should understand when to use a green gel. :

(Strobist still has that article if you want to read up on it.)

 

[Sporgon]

@ mrsfotographie, use whatever shutter speed you want as long as it is longer than, or equal to, your cameras sync speed.

@ RLP; I think you'll find the softness in PBD's second picture is defraction from having the sun in the frame.

 

[serendipidy]

Dear Friends.
One question that hit me, I never have Canon PowerShot G15, But Why it show under my Name ??----Thanks.

The camera under a posters name is given by CR according to how many posts you have made. The more posts, the better the camera you get assigned. Look at the number of posts and see the cameras other got. 8)

 

[surapon]

Dear Friends.
One question that hit me, I never have Canon PowerShot G15, But Why it show under my Name ??----Thanks.

The camera under a posters name is given by CR according to how many posts you have made. The more posts, the better the camera you get assigned. Look at the number of posts and see the cameras other got. 8)

Thank you, Sir, Dear Serendipidy, for your clear answer.

 

[Marsu42]

And as for the discussion about off-camera flash and gels and such ... please continue and enjoy your discussion folks but it is obviously not of practical application to me!

I'd say you're mistaken here, I made the same mistake, if you use flash you *have* to know about gels, at least about orange (cto) to balance daylight because that will save you hours of postprocessing with the whitebalance brush to edit away the horrible/amateurish blue flash color cast.

The OP has no need for gels. Why would I continue posting about them? Plus, a man of your caliber should understand when to use a green gel. :

I don't see any problem widening a thread, this most of the time this is when it gets interesting (for me) - it's great if the op gets specific advice, but I don't think a thread necessarily has to stick to it - esp. since anybody beginning with flash photography should also know about gels.

Blue = Cooler. IE: Blue hour after sunset through a softbox.
Green = Greener? IE: Maybe to Direct-fill in shadows indoors with florescent tubes.

From everything I read imho for CTG privatebydesign says the same I've read on the usual suspect's websites: florescent is now so different that you cannot gel it away, and thus I see little reason to have it. But thanks for the idea about CTB, though I also suspect that the effect often might be too subtle so a "stronger" effects gel should do better.

 

[Hesbehindyou]

So I've been doing most if not all of my photography over the last 7 years without using a flash. I like ambient light and ... I dislike it when a flash has obviously been used to get a picture.

So my question is: Do you have any recommendations I can start out with? What conditions would typically require which settings?

Note that I would like to use it for general photography because I do very little portraiture.

Excellent website I've recently stumbled across. Heavily portrait-biased but what's the difference between a person and a 'thing'?
http://neilvn.com/tangents/flash-photography-techniques/natural-looking-flash/

Note in the 2nd example the subject in the foreground is entirely lit by the flash as he's had to have a relatively fast shutter speed (to keep the colour in the stained glass windows) and without the flash the foreground subject would have almost been a silhouette. He's made the flash look natural by a) bouncing it off a wall behind him, and b) Correcting white balance of foreground (and possibly background) in post.

This other page deals with mixing flash and ambient light, which seems to be exactly the sort of thing you want - particularly the first example.
http://neilvn.com/tangents/flash-photography-techniques/flash-and-ambient-light/

The pages are part of a series and I'd suggest you read them all, plus the Stobist 101 & 102 series. Even if you're not using flash in the way that they do you'll be wanting to steal some of their ideas.

 

[neuroanatomist]

Excellent website I've recently stumbled across. Heavily portrait-biased but what's the difference between a person and a 'thing'?
http://neilvn.com/tangents/flash-photography-techniques/natural-looking-flash/

Funny thing...I recently stumbled across that website, too. Astounding coincidence? Or the fact that privatebydesign linked it in the 3rd post of this thread? :-X

 

[Hesbehindyou]

Excellent website I've recently stumbled across. Heavily portrait-biased but what's the difference between a person and a 'thing'?
http://neilvn.com/tangents/flash-photography-techniques/natural-looking-flash/

Funny thing...I recently stumbled across that website, too. Astounding coincidence? Or the fact that privatebydesign linked it in the 3rd post of this thread? :-X

Heh, I'll have to pay more attention next time. I've been learning about flash recently as I'm unhappy with both natural light and my attempts to improve upon it. That site and the strobist 101 & 102 series are easily the best out there on the web.

 

[mrsfotografie]

Shoot camera in manual, stick tissue over flash, knock it down -2 stops on exp comp.

I will give this tissue thing a go on my 7D when I use the built-in flash.

I have an event tomorrow; 'living' statues. Going to bring the 7D + Tammy 17-50 f/2.8 for group / environmental pics, and the 5D2 with a 70-200 f/2.8 IS II and Metz flash for the portraits. I'm wondering if the latter combination will work, or will the lens cast shadows???

 

[mrsfotografie]

Thanks all, had a great day photographing 'living statues' with fill flash. Alrhough it felt a little bit confusing at times I'm pretty happy with some of the results Here's a sample:

 

[Sporgon]

Thanks all, had a great day photographing 'living statues' with fill flash. Alrhough it felt a little bit confusing at times I'm pretty happy with some of the results Here's a sample:

Well I think in your original post you said you wanted a straight forward technique to give a natural light.

I couldn't tell you've used fill in flash in that picture !

 

[mrsfotografie]

Thanks all, had a great day photographing 'living statues' with fill flash. Alrhough it felt a little bit confusing at times I'm pretty happy with some of the results Here's a sample:

Well I think in your original post you said you wanted a straight forward technique to give a natural light.

I couldn't tell you've used fill in flash in that picture !

Sporgon, thanks! Exactly the type of result I was looking for; flash without it being obvious. I even wrote your simple guidelines on a sticky note as a reminder. I ended up shooting most of my pictures in Tv because light conditions were varying too much (clouds, sunshine) to shoot fully manual. I did use the camera in fast flash sync as well. I'm really happy and think I've reached a milestone today (but still have much to learn).