550EX for studio portraits... help

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I have used an EOS-3 for outdoor and portrait photography for a year - all available light only. I am tasked now with photographing a small college graduation to include portraits of graduates indoors with florescent lighting. I plan to use the EOS-3 with two 550EXs: one on camera (vertical orientation, w/ flash to one side), and one slave on a tripod. I have no experience with flash photography and the manual for my recently purchased Speedlite offers no help with technique. Fellow EOS users, please help! I know I'll need a few test shoots. In the mean time what advise can you offer regarding Speedlite positioning, flash output, aperture, and whatever else I need to consider.

Thanks

-- Derrick L Morin (morin@fttr.navy.mil), February 27, 2001

Answers

This is about the same setup that I'm using for studio portrait but I use both flashes off camera via the transmitter.

If you use Fuji NPH, the florescent light won't be objectionable and you won't have to compensate for it.

Are you going to be taking the graduates as a group or individually? For the latter, I'd buy/rent a light stand and umbrella for the off camera flash and use the on camera flash for the fill light, set about two stops less than the main.

If the former, I'd skip the umbrella and use direct flash set to give you the same reading as the ambient light.

What color gowns with the graduates be wearing? If black or white, you'll have to use flash compensation.

To see some portraits taken with my setup, take a look at:

www.columbusoft.com/pf/photos.htm

Paul

-- Paul Ferrara (paul@columbusoft.com), February 28, 2001.


Thanks, Paul, for responding. I will definately go with your suggestion about the on-camera fill, and the stand-off main light - that just seems to make the most sense.

About the film: I was planning to use Kodak Portra 160 VC for the color rendition and detail. I do not have experience with Fuji NPH - can you compare the two?

I will take a group photo of up to 15 people (probably less), and individual portraits of each graduate. Can I get away with a single on-camera Speedlite for the group shot, or should I use a slave as well?

The gowns will be maroon with gold trimmings. I do not expect to have to compensate for these colors.

Thanks for the samples. If my shoot comes out as well I will be pleased.

I would appreciate further comments from anyone who can speak from experience.

Thanks, Derrick

-- Derrick L Morin (morin@fttr.navy.mil), February 28, 2001.


About the film: I was planning to use Kodak Portra 160 VC for the color rendition and detail. I do not have experience with Fuji NPH - can you compare the two?

The NPH is 2/3 of a stop faster when rated as some people rate the NPH at 250 and develop normally. 2/3 would give you slightly faster recycle times for your flash units. You didn't mention high capacity batteries for the 550's. Something to consider. I will take a group photo of up to 15 people (probably less), and individual portraits of each graduate. Can I get away with a single on-camera Speedlite for the group shot, or should I use a slave as well?

You could very easily use only an oncamera flash for the group shot. Just get your flash above the camera at least 12" (30cm).

The gowns will be maroon with gold trimmings. I do not expect to have to compensate for these colors.

You will have to compensate for the maroon. It is really close to black in color. If you don't dial in about -1.3 of FEC, all your shots will be OVERexposed. And if you meter off the gowns and don't use an incident meter to set your shutter speed, the ambient balance will be about 1.5 stops overexposed as well. Dial in -1.3 of exposure compensation in addition to the -1.3 of FEC. Trust me on this. A long time ago I bought an EOS systema nd was led to believe that FEC only adjusted the power output of the flash. I recently learned what I am telling you now. Again, the reflectance of the area at whcih the focus point is on, will determine the amnount of power the flash puts out. Dark subject, the flash will put out a lot of light. It wants to make the subject gray. White subject and the flash will shut down early. Find constant reflactant subjects in your photos and learn to use FEC and FEL. The flash exposure is related to what amount of reflectance the selected focus point is pointing at. The shutter speed will control the balance of ambient light to the flash output. Example: Outdoor shooting at f/8 in moderate light, you may need a shutter speed of 1/125 to balance ambient to flash. Any longer and your background will be overexposed. Any less and your background your bg will be underexposed. This can be usefeul sometimes. Like in your situation. The flourescent light will print as green. If you bump up your shutter speed at least 3 stops shorter than the ambient balance, you shouldn't have any trouble. The background will be dark or black, but that is preferrable to green backgrounds or having to gel your flash and camera.

I recently had a shoot in a small room lit by flourescent. Ambient metering determined that a shutter speed of 1/4 and f/11 was appropriate. I set my camera to 1/60 and f/11 and used monlights for main light. That short shutter speed didn't allow any flourescent light to be rendered on the film. The monolights provided all the light. Do you understand what I'm saying?

-- Colin Miller (ckmiller@pond.net), February 28, 2001.


Yes, Colin, I think I understood all of that. Thanks for all the good info, but his is starting to seem quite complicated for this studio nivice.

As far as the FEC for the dark gowns, could I just expose for faces instead? Am I being too simplistic? I would like to keep this simple, but I'm afraid I have sophisticated gear and situation that gets harder the more I learn about it.

-- Derrick L Morin (morin@fttr.navy.mil), February 28, 2001.


If you use NPH, you won't have to worry about the florescent lights. I don't know about Portra but they normally cause a green hue in the pictures and NPH is relatively immune to this. Also NPH is 400 so it's a bit faster (I rate it at 400 also) and you may need the extra stop or so.

I think the maroon may meter slightly darker than 18% gray so I'd dial in a stop of negative FEC. If you over expose it won't be nearly as bad as if you under expose. The real difference is probably a half stop or so.

I'd use the flash on the light stand for the group, set as high as your light stand will go. Use Av and f8 and evaluative metering and your group picture should end up balanced between flash and ambient light.

Believe it or not, the individual photos may be harder to meter than the group shot depending on how tight you crop them in the viewfinder, because of the difference in flesh tones compared to 18% gray. What I would do is (with all flashes off), meter on a gray card, then on a gown. Dial in the difference as FEC. Then for every shot, press the FEL button first which will set the flash exposure, then press the shutter.

Set the ratio between the main light (on the stand) to be two stops higher than the fill (on the camera). That's 1:4 on the ratio scale. Position the main light about 30 degs off the subject's nose axis. Lots of different ways to pose them but I'd position their body at about 45 deg to the camera and turn their head back towards the camera and have them look into the lens.

Paul

-- Paul Ferrara (paul@columbusoft.com), March 01, 2001.



As far as the FEC for the dark gowns, could I just expose for faces instead? Am I being too simplistic? I would like to keep this simple, but I'm afraid I have sophisticated gear and situation that gets harder the more I learn about it.

Yes Derrick, you can focus on a caucasian person's face and your exposure will look good. When I did a test roll on slide film, I used every FEC setting on 4 FEL'd subjects; a caucasian face, a white card, a black card and a gray card. 0 FEC on a face most closely matched (to my eyes) the results I desire. It also closely matched 0 FEC on the gray card. +2 was right on for the white card and -2 was perfect for the black card.

It's amazing how we try to be more and more simple using this gear that is highly advanced, no? I almost dumped my Elan IIe for an A2e or a 1n to get rid of E-TTL. I was that discouraged. Now that I know how to shoot with flash, I try to get everyone else to know what I do and I actaully enjoy shooting again.

You can make things simple; focus on the caucasion faces with 0 FEC and when in doubt, FEL the maroon gowns with -1.5 of FEC. You won't have any trouble doing it this way.

-- Colin Miller (ckmiller@pond.net), March 01, 2001.


Paul, I certainly agree with you about the individuals vs the group: the group will be the simpler shot. Your suggestions about setting up the portraits sounds like what I want to do - should work fine.

Colin, interesting observation about simplifying sophisticated gear. I love my gear, and I typically buy way ahead of my abilities, then grow into the gear. Ideally, my first indoor project wouldn't have this kind of preassure attached to it (the school and graduates expect pro work), but that just means I have a lot of testing to do.

Many thanks to you both for all your valuable input. I now have some great information to get started with, and I don't feel like I'm going in cold.

-- Derrick L Morin (morin@fttr.navy.mil), March 01, 2001.


"Look good" is relative. Metering on the average causcasian face may look okay in the end if the lab helps you out a bit but your negatives will definitely be under-exposed. All it takes is a gray card to confirm this; you don't even have to take a picture.

The absolutely foolproof way to handle both groups and individuals is to set your flashes on manual and use a flash meter to adjust their power. Once you have them set, you can forget it and concentrate on the posing.

Paul

-- Paul Ferrara (paul@columbusoft.com), March 01, 2001.


One more thing,

I like the Ratio function on the 550EX between two slaves; my problem is I have only two 550EX's and cannot afford another flash or a ST-E2 transmitter, so I can only have one slave. How do I get the ratio effect in E-TTL mode between a master and a single slave? It appears that I can only 'dial down' the power (1/2, 1/4, 1/8, etc.) in manual mode. Am I left with 'cheating' methods such as altering the distance of the flashes, or bouncing / diffusing the light? I would appreciate any knowledgable input here.

Thanks

-- Derrick Morin (morin@fttr.navy.mil), April 10, 2001.


I've never actually tried taking pictures with a 550EX as the master so can't answer that question based on experience but if you can use ratio control with two flashes (and I think you can) then it can go either way. In this case you'd want the setting to be 1:4 rather than 4:1.

But in a studio environment where you're going to take quite a number of shots with minimal changes to the lighting then using manual mode for both flashes is far simpler even if it is a little low-tech. I spent more time than I'd want to admit trying to use E-TTL for studio work before I finally said the hell with it.

Paul

-- Paul Ferrara (paul@columbusoft.com), April 11, 2001.



Paul,

Yes, you can use the Ratio function with two flashes, but only if they are both slaves. The ratio refers to slaves 'A' and 'B' (A:B), or 'A', 'B', and 'C' (A:B C). The Master can not participate here; it can only direct the slaves as to their power relative to each other (1:4, 4:1, etc.). Since I do not have the ST-E2 transmitter or a third 550EX, I must use a 550EX as the master; I will most likely place it about 2 feet to one side via an off-camera shoe cord.

In truth, my 2nd 550EX has yet to arrive via UPS and I have much testing to do. I will likely soon become comfortable enough with studio flash photography to go manual as you suggest. Thanks for your input.

Derrick

-- Derrick Morin (morin@fttr.navy.mil), April 11, 2001.


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