s2kdriver80

When I try to shoot indoors at night (family/friend gatherings, etc), I use the Speedlite to complement the ambient lighting via bouncing off the walls. I avoid making the flash my primary source. Therefore, I pretty much set ambient exposure levels the way I would if I were not using flash (aperture/shutter speed/ISO around 0), then use flash ETTL adjusting FEC as needed to complement the ambient light.

As a result, when I shoot with say my 50/1.4 lens, my typical settings might be f/2.0, 1/100, ISO 800/1600, with ETTL flash (I try not to shoot wide open with this lens; f/1.4 is soft). When I shoot with my 85/1.8 lens, my settings might be something like f/2.2, 1/125, ISO 1600, with ETTL flash. Is this the correct approach? The reason I ask is, without these fast primes, I think it would be difficult, if not impractical, to shoot indoors while maintaining ambient lighting and a shutter speed that is fast enough to stop motion (especially candid people shots). Unless I push ISO 3200, I don't feel really good about shooting even with my 17-55/2.8 lens, much less shooting with anything slower (e.g. kit lens).

Having said this, do people with crop bodies and slower lenses sacrifice ambient lighting and/or push their ISO into the stratosphere when using anything other than decent primes?

dwight

My 50/1.4 is soft wide open as well. I haven't done side-by-side comparisons, but I'm pretty sure that it is the softest lens that I have.

I'm no expert, but it sounds like your approach is correct, or at very least it is similar to what I do.

Is your zoom the Canon EF-S 17-55/2.8 IS? If so, with that you could go a few stops slower than the 1/focal length rule-of-thumb (e.g. f/3.2, 1/60, ISO 800). I've found that with the good IS zooms, I can usually get by with lower ISO than I can with primes because the IS more than makes up for the loss of aperture.

I'm not sure why you think this is a crop sensor related. If the lighting is poor, I need to shoot with fast glass and jack the ISO regardless of which body I use.

s2kdriver80

Thanks for your feedback. With my 17-55, I'm not afraid to shoot wide open, unlike the 50 1.4 and the 85 1.8. IS only aids hand-holdability, not subject movement. With full frames, you can shoot at higher ISO settings with less noise.

dwight

I'm not talking about shooting at 1/10s at 17mm. I'm comparing 1/100s to 1/60s when shooting at 50mm.

I wouldn't think about it as FF vs. crop. A lot of the newer high-end crops like the 7D and 1D4 have excellent high ISO performance.

Ted H

If it's that dark what you want is a diffuser on your flash... It will allow you to aim it more in the direction of your content, and increase power, without causing nasty direct-light shadows.

For weddings and events (In addition to, or sometimes in alternative to) I used to use a nice flash bracket and a good diffuser. Positioning the flash off the camera, then shooting it at a slight angle, or up with a bounce and a diffuser, usually works very well. You can get some additional liht above ambient level this way, but not too much.

If you're using a 580EX or most of the smaller units I believe, they have built in cards.

S2KenC

Not sure which camera you are using but ISO 1600 might be pushing it just a tad for a crop sensor. In my opinion at least.

Instead of F2.0, ISO 1600, 1/100....I would rather use F2.0 ISO 800, 1/60 and then use the speedlite in ETTL to light the subject. Cleaner exposure.

Also, don't worry too much about subject movement at 1/60 or even 1/30. Unless you are shooting sports or fast motion, you shouldn't get too much ghosting by dragging the shutter. The flash exposure should freeze motion.

Just experiment and you should get some good results. And post up some pix to give us an idea of the type of shots you are getting with your settings.

s2kdriver80

The T2i and T3i - the outputs are pretty much identical. ISO 1600 is ok with these cameras. I have no doubt underexposing like you say would produce a cleaner shot and there's nothing wrong with a dominant flash shot, but I prefer a stronger ambient with supplemental flash. Inside a home at night with an average amount of tungsten lighting, it isn't quite dark enough to really depend on flash to freeze the subject (e.g. not like a nightclub scene). I get ghastly ghosting trails if I drag the shutter in standard indoor lighting conditions, especially when people aren't posing or standing still.

Calamari

I've shot indoor clubs, and sometimes to bring out the ambient in the clubs I can go down to as low as 1/13. of course, I only want the bright lights / neons so I can still shoot at iso 400 ish. now if you are trying to balance the ambient + flash indoors, you have to consider a couple things.

You are on the right track of using bright lenses. Now, just assuming that you are using a typical event photographer setup (mounted flash on camera using ceiling bounce etc). there is only so much you can do.

I would try to stay above at least 1/80th of a second in indoor situation for events because looking at what you want to shoot, which is "candid" the subjects arent going to hold still while you take a picture. The flash WILL freeze the subjects somewhat, but at an indoor situation where ambient lights are mixed onto the subject as well, it WILL create ghosting. Now if you were shooting the subject where there was no ambient mixed in, you can shoot at low speeds and perfectly freeze the subject without ghosting.

I am assuming that that isnt the case and this indoor environment is kinda like someone's house or a banquet hall.

also consider using GEls to color balance the ugly indoor lights, and hope that all the indoor lights you are shooting in are consistant. I also use a gary fong, ETTL cord, and I would like to use a bracket, but I just sorta hold it off to the side with my left arm. I find that off camera it takes much more flattering photos. Getting a bracket like a stroboframe would really help with my sore left arm though!

As far as ISO, you cant really do much other than to use what you can get 1/80th or 1/100th shutter speeds out of, unless this is an event where you know your subjects will pose and wait for your shutter to close.

Good luck!

s2kdriver80

Thanks man... it pretty much confirms what I was assuming. I either have to decrease the ambient/flash ratio or not be afraid to bump up the ISO, if I want to maintain this style. Or if possible, see if I can get them to turn on some more tungsten lighting. I do have a shoot-through umbrella and light stand and would use that in the right setting, but would not be practical for candid/photojournalistic type shots. One of the reasons I picked up the T3i was for the built-in IR Speedlite transceiver. I see you have the 5D2. I wonder what kind of improvements the 5D3 would have. I was considering FF but could not justify the purchase since I don't work professionally, and in most cases, the newer crop bodies work great. If the 5D3 comes out with a 7D-like AF system and integrated Speedlite transceiver with HSS (maybe even RF), that would be tempting.

Calamari

yea, sometimes, you really have to be on the spot and make a decision if you want to "get the shot" or sacrifice image quality. Who knows though, ghosting can sometimes have interesting events. I usually get all the "safe" shots first, then play around with dragging the shutter afterwards. I recently got one of my buddies to buy a T3i, they are great cameras. Having a FF allows the option of using higher ISO such as 2000, because it doesn't look too bad, however the 5D2 would be a terrible photojournalistic camera. I like to imagine my camera like a clunky old 4x5 large format camera. The AF is terrible, if i shoot indoors, or in "dim" ish places, i cant pick up on focus points (I have a flashlight with me to focus sometimes...), the shooting FPS is slow... I used to shoot Nikon and they outperform my 5d2 in these parts. The speedlight IR connection thinggy, Nikon has been coming out with that since... as far as I remember my old D200 had it. Its something people replace with pocketwizards or whatnot though, I found it very very unreliable in certain outdoor locations, but its certainly cheaper to get to start off camera lighting haha