Originally posted by Red Dawn
Hi
this is a D30 shot, at ISO 1600, with 420EX flash providing ETTL coverage.
No flash exposure compensation was used because i have deliberately underexposed the background 1 or 2 stops. No way am i going to be able to expose the background properly - discos lights were dancing but it was simply too dark. Exposing the background properly would have shutter speeds too low for handholding, even at f2, which is the max aperture of the Sigma 20 f1.8 i was using......
therefore, i used flash as the main source of illumination.
the same principles should apply to film.
There's actually another stylistic way to take such shots - meter background properly even with inhuman shutter speeds, set flash to second curtain sync and faslh exposure compensation -1. This gives you slow sync effects with sharp subjects (due to the flash) and blurred backgrounds and some ghosting of the main subject (double images).
the slow sync effect is very nice when used well, but may not sit well with some viewers.
