Canon 430EX- Plastic screen

[Nathaniel]

Could anyone advise. I took some photos around 9pm (sod cutting under people and portraits) and used my flash. I am only wondering whether I would have got better lighting if I had pulled down the sliding,plastic screen over the flash head to perhaps give me more light. I am repeating one of the photos from "sod cutting-hearitage gardens"

[Trevoreast]

Re: Canon 430EX- Plastic screen

That is the wide panel it gives your flash a wide beam, it's 14mm on the 580 series flashguns maybe it's the same on yours.

There is a custom function that auto zooms your flash gun head from widest 24mm to 105.

Conc: Makes the beam wider - but it's effective for less range.

Trev

[briansquibb]

Re: Canon 430EX- Plastic screen

It would have done in this case as you were at 17mm

[Trevoreast]

Re: Canon 430EX- Plastic screen

Tells you what the panel does, on the question of better light it doesn't tell you alot. :-)
With this picture the line up looks wrong to me with tall persons closest to the camera.
I'd seek to re-gig that a bit and maybe shoot earlier with 1 flashgun for a bit more available light

There may be other things I'd look at if I was actually there shooting this, but I'm not.

Is that "Our" Brain on the far right ?? :-)))

Trev

[briansquibb]

Re: Canon 430EX- Plastic screen

Is that "Our" Brain on the far right ?? :-)))

Trev

[Nathaniel]

Re: Canon 430EX- Plastic screen

Brian look alike!

[briansquibb]

Re: Canon 430EX- Plastic screen

Brian look alike!

He has some way to catch up on the beard

[SamFisher]

Re: Canon 430EX- Plastic screen

The people aren't too badly exposed.
In the meantime I'm sure you could lighten the b/g with the shadow/highlight tool

Mike

[EOS_Jim]

Re: Canon 430EX- Plastic screen

The issue with the dark background is down to the shuter speed.

Flash exposed the subjects well and for the chosen aperture you needed the shutter to stay open a bit longer if you wanted the background brighter.

[briansquibb]

Re: Canon 430EX- Plastic screen

As it was late at night (20:50) then the light was going so perhaps iso400 would have been better

Brian

[Nathaniel]

Re: Canon 430EX- Plastic screen

thanks for all your comments. I completely forgot to adjust the ISO. Brian you are so right. One can't remember all the do's and don't do's at short requests!!!!

[EOS_Jim]

Re: Canon 430EX- Plastic screen

Nathaniel
I find it useful to find a "correct" exposure first then when shootig with flash you can choose to add a little fill or you can darken the background by altering the shutter speed.

Altering the Aperture will increase/decrease the power required by the flash and amending the ISO affects both the exposure and background

Brian's right that if you are shooting with a low ISO in low light then the ambient exposure without flash may be under exposed so increasing the ISO will help recover some of the under exposure - and brightening up the background a bit.

[Nathaniel]

Re: Canon 430EX- Plastic screen

Thanks Jim. I will keep all this in mind-hopefully.