Photo Rebel

As you may have read in my first post, a contributing reason of how I got into photography was through the disappointment in the quality of pictures we all took with point-and-shoot cameras in the pub. All the photos were crap and I really hate that daylight balanced flash to illuminate the subjects and that really dark background.

I didn’t get a flash gun when I purchased my Canon 40D in early November 2007. But I did get a 580EX II sometime later in 2008.

Working with flash is more challenging than you expect when you know nothing about flash. Shooting in a pub environment was one thing I wanted to get right. It took me quite a while to settle on a reliable formula (through trial and error)…

So… here it is… ISO 800, F5.6 (go smaller for groups like F8), 1/20 sec to 1/50 sec depending on the time of day and how much ambient background you want in the frame. Cloudy white balance to warm up the subjects (assuming the pub is filled with lots of warm colours). Bounce flash on-camera pointing towards the ceiling. Adjust the Flash Exposure Value (FEV) depending on how low or high the ceiling is. Be careful of the colour of the ceiling as the flash light may reflect the colour of it. If there is no suitable ceiling, use a wall (preferably white) to bounce the flash light off… below are a few examples…

Uses the formula as described at 1/20 sec shutter speed, 70mm.

Same singer, but caught her practicing. Taken at 1/20 sec, 24mm.

Another of the same girl, except my buddy Graham is holding a flash gun with an optical slave hotshoe behind the singer. You can see the effect of the 2nd light source... same setting as the previous shot.

This is Gemma Hindmarch. My buddy Graham placed the flash on a small shelf and pointed the flash upwards so the light ran up the wall and the top of the ceiling. This created a large light source around 8-10 feet away and I used my remote trigger (ST-E2). Picture taken at 1/20 sec at 200mm.

Yip... uses the usual formula... shutter was 1/25 sec at 200mm.

Again... same technique works for groups! This was taken around xmas time...

Even at these slow shutter speeds and ISO 800, the detail and sharpness is good.

Okay... there's no flash used here... but I like the mood of this pub image. Taken at F2.8, 1/50 sec, ISO800, 200mm. Even in a pub environment, there's plenty of opportunity to take shots without flash.