kostas papakotas <kostaspapakotas@hotmail.com> writes: > ok the chips are down for once more... > > my best friend's brother is getting married saturday, and instead of a > gift i offered to take B&W shots of the ceremony Yep, big bet on this one! > there will be a pro shooting color, and videoing at the same time, but > the existence of a very strong spot for the videocamera (maybe a > single one) bothers me > > that calls strong directional light, and the use of a fill in flash. > > but...at iso 400 (hp5+) my flash has a GN of 22...at a distance of 4-6 > yards i wonder if it will be enough to balance the spot (unknown > wattage). > thats is some uncertain situation Is the strong light on the video camera something that's standard for wedding video there, or just a worry? Because that's pretty lousy lighting for the *video*, too. But might be all they can manage. If there's harsh light from that, then fill flash for you might be the solution. Fill flash is a pain manually. I imagine you know all this stuff, but it's hard to tell which little detail a person half a world away might not have connected up, so I'm going to be a bit basic here. Apologies for the parts you know all about already! The basic thing to remember is that the *shutter speed* affects only the natural light, but the *aperture* affects BOTH the flash AND the natural light. Changing the aperture affects overall exposure exactly as you'd expect, but changing the shutter speed affects *only* the natural light exposure. (And of course you have to work within the constraint of the range of shutter speeds that you can sync your flash with, too.) *Increasing* the shutter speed *increases* the amount of fill. So what sort of lighting ratio do you want? Once you've determined the natural light exposure, then between the power setting on the flash and the settings on your camera, find a way to give a flash exposure that's, say, 1 stop down from the natural light exposure. This will give you about a 2:1 lighting ratio. (Okay, the flash adds to the highlights, too, but only 1/2 stop in this setup. So it's 2.5:1, and that's pretty close to the ever-popular 3:1 ratio. And if you go for less fill, the affect in the highlights is correspondingly less.) Your flash may quite possibly not be bright enough to really do this. Getting closer is the only *cheap* solution. The other solution is a more powerful flash. > also, i wonder what camera setting i should use a programed mode, > the AV mode risking the occasional faster than shutter sync time > shot,or should i take a general reading of the frame and work up and > down from there? If I understand your camera and flash correctly, I think you need to do this manually. Too many variables that the system isn't really set up to handle, so automating is likely to be trouble. The light produced by the moving video spotlight will not be the sort of situation a simple auto-exposure system will do even vaguely decently with, in my experience. With matrix metering and TTL flash, you'd probably actually be better off doing it auto! (Mostly I'm not much for auto exposure, but TTL flash is *so* much better than any approach other than slow setup and using a flash meter that if it's available, it should be used.) > another concern of mine will be our flashes firing simultaneously. it > happens believe me! how does that affect my exposure determining > method ? i actually tend towards the AV mode...TV is out of question > 'cos the camera does not co-operate with that lense (screw mount one) I've had one or two frames that clearly show simultaneous flashes going off. Not much you *can* do except notice when it happens. Oh, and try to avoid *deliberately* synchronizing with anybody else (like if the other guy is giving a cue to a group when he's going to shoot, *don't* try to shoot at the same time!) > i will be needing as much shutter speed and tight aperture i will be > able to get, since i will be using a 80-200 zoom, but at sync speed of > 1/100 - 1/125 i will have to hold steady! Use your 50 a lot. Obviously sometimes you just *can't* go closer, but most of the time it's just a matter of feeling a little intrusive and obvious walking up to people. Learn to deal with it. -- David Dyer-Bennet, dd-b@dd-b.net / New TMDA anti-spam in test John Dyer-Bennet 1915-2002 Memorial Site http://john.dyer-bennet.net Book log: http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/Ouroboros/booknotes/ New Dragaera mailing lists, see http://dragaera.info
