General Questions

[geneboi]

Hi,

I have several questions that I am unable to find the answers after an extensive search in forum and online. I willl list down the gears I am using for your reference:

Canon 550D
18-55mm IS kit lens
50mm f.18 m2
Yongnuo YN465 flash (E-TTL)

1) What would be the ideal focusing method for a group shot?
Example: If I were to shoot a group of 5 people in a typical indoor chinese restaraunt all sitted around a round table.

Current: I use the center point and auto focus at the middle person. My aperture will be at least f5.6 to ensure the extreme left and right person is sharp

Question:
- Is my current method ok?
- As mentioned by many posts that focus should be on the eyes of ther person. However my center focus point may not be pointing directly at the eyes of the middle person due to composition
- How about the eyes of the remaining 4 person?

2) Difference between external flash and EV compensation
I am very puzzled by this. EV compensation allows you to manually increase/decrease the light.

Example: Same example as above, but this time the lighting is quite poor

Question:
- I can just increase the EV compensation right? If so, whats the hype over external flash?
- I read in some flash articles that EV compensation may even be required when using external flash. If so, then why not just adjust the EV compensation in the first place?

Hope that someone can clarify my queries

Thanks!

 

[Rashkae]

Hi,

I have several questions that I am unable to find the answers after an extensive search in forum and online.

You definitely did NOT do an extensive search in the forum or online. A simple search for "How to do group shots" gives many many answers, and there are multiple such threads in CS alone.

- As mentioned by many posts that focus should be on the eyes of ther person. However my center focus point may not be pointing directly at the eyes of the middle person due to composition
- How about the eyes of the remaining 4 person?

That's for portraiture when using a shallow DOF. In your case, you should be at about f/8-f/11, then everything should be in focus.

2) Difference between external flash and EV compensation
I am very puzzled by this. EV compensation allows you to manually increase/decrease the light.

No, the only way to increase the light is to turn on more lights. I suggest reading your manual again, or doing a search for "How does EV compensation work". All it does is adjust aperture, shutter speed or ISO to increase the exposure value. An external flash, logically, adds more light to the scene and is a very different concept from adjusting EV.

Question:
- I can just increase the EV compensation right? If so, whats the hype over external flash?

See above. Totally different.

- I read in some flash articles that EV compensation may even be required when using external flash. If so, then why not just adjust the EV compensation in the first place?

Because you never read up on how EV compensation works.

 

[SkyStrike]

Try reading this one for EV Compensation: http://www.digital-photography-school.com/ev-compensation-explained. Please also note that EV Compensation is different from Flash compensation where Flash compensation will determine the amount of flash/light being used.

The Benefits/hype of ext flash right off my mind is: stronger power of flash, can choose direction of flash (so can also bounce flash off the wall), flash recycle time (should have more...can't recall)

 

[Octarine]

Flash on EOS cameras