To flash or not to flash

[strobby]

Like to hear you guy opinion on this .

Senerio: indoor with tungsten down light , with a 17 -50mm 2.8 lens and ISO 1600 ...you can achieve 1/ 60 shutter speed .

Do you use flash or not .

for me , try no to as i think flash kill the whole amopshere.

 

[hammie]

If the flash is able to overpower the ambient. I will

 

[kelvinkhoo]

Same here... so that the person face will not be so orange......... and will have the catchlights in the eyes and also retaining the face colour of the person

 

[LittleWolf]

Like to hear you guy opinion on this .

Senerio: indoor with tungsten down light , with a 17 -50mm 2.8 lens and ISO 1600 ...you can achieve 1/ 60 shutter speed .

Do you use flash or not .

That would depend on whether something in the picture is moving, whether I wanted it sharp, and whether it is worth to sacrifice the atmmosphere of the available light. Since you don't mention moving objects, the answer is easy: use a tripod.

 

[hammie]

But I would think a CTO would likely to be of a use in this case

 

[king2penn]

Like to hear you guy opinion on this .

Senerio: indoor with tungsten down light , with a 17 -50mm 2.8 lens and ISO 1600 ...you can achieve 1/ 60 shutter speed .

Do you use flash or not .

for me , try no to as i think flash kill the whole amopshere.

I only use ISO 1600 in emergencies (i.e. no flash allowed at the event; no tripod present; shutter speed too slow to hand hold)
1/60 hand held is a risky undertaking- your photo might not turn out sharp although the recommended threshold for hand held is 1/30s

But relating back to your question

1) I would most probably use a fill flash to balance out the tungsten lighting. Depending on whether flash synchro is on, u might still need a tripod in order for ur pic to be sharp. Also depending on whether u got an external flash, and whether it has a diffuser on, i would bounce the flash off the ceiling for a softer texture of the lighting on the environment.

2) If fill flash is out of the question, i would set the white balance to tungsten (additional editing could be done later) and hold the camera as close as possible to my body and take the shot.

3) If u own the Nikon D3, we could err... arrange a meet-up in a secluded place to discuss this perplexing problem :devil:

 

[sin77]

try not to use flash to retain the natural feel.
however if got shadow on face i will fire the flash.

 

[king2penn]

try not to use flash to retain the natural feel.
however if got shadow on face i will fire the flash.

If the tungsten light is too harsh, there would be no natural feel too.
Ditto for overexposed flash shots

 

[m3lv1nh0]

Get 50L or 85L + 5DMkII.. no need flash anymore

 

[tjhan]

But I would think a CTO would likely to be of a use in this case

Dunno but here on CS, I've never seen anyone talk about or use a CTO or any colour correcting gel. It appears nobody really cares lol or Sg lights are amazing.

 

[sin77]

If the tungsten light is too harsh, there would be no natural feel too.
Ditto for overexposed flash shots

How about ev -1? Then set white balance?

 

[coolpix]

Like to hear you guy opinion on this .

Senerio: indoor with tungsten down light , with a 17 -50mm 2.8 lens and ISO 1600 ...you can achieve 1/ 60 shutter speed .

Do you use flash or not .

for me , try no to as i think flash kill the whole amopshere.

With a 2.8 lens, you are correct, you must NOT use flash coz you will change the atmosphere and distract the people around you.

This is the greatest benefit of using a faster lens, to be able to shoot in low light. So take advantage of it.

but obviously, your aperture setting should be 2.8-3.5 when you shoot.

 

[David Kwok]

IMHO, I will say use a flash when you feel it gives you better photos. You can have the fastest lens but if the light doesn't fall on the face, it doesn't lit up the face. You either do spot metering which will blow away your background or you fill up the face abit with a flash to make it looks nicer.

Since your background light is tungsten, put on a tungsten gel on the flash, put your cam to tungsten WB and try. Should be giving you a good colour render.

I personally do my snap on manual mode shutter:1/80 <-> 1/125 to decide how much of the background light I want. aperture between MAX <-> 3.5 depending on the group size. I personally find a 2 rows group requires 3.2 to keep everyone in sharp focus. Find out at each aperture, how much DOF you have and make the necessary adjustment. ISO at 800 is my max for the acceptable noise level based on a Nikon D3. The higher your ISO, the more sensitive it is to ambient light when your aperture close down and/or your shutter speed increase. Then I will use a noise reduction software such as noiseware NR to keep the noise down on post processing.

 

[sin77]

IMHO, I will say use a flash when you feel it gives you better photos. You can have the fastest lens but if the light doesn't fall on the face, it doesn't lit up the face. You either do spot metering which will blow away your background or you fill up the face abit with a flash to make it looks nicer.

Since your background light is tungsten, put on a tungsten gel on the flash, put your cam to tungsten WB and try. Should be giving you a good colour render.

I personally do my snap on manual mode shutter:1/80 <-> 1/125 to decide how much of the background light I want. aperture between MAX <-> 3.5 depending on the group size. I personally find a 2 rows group requires 3.2 to keep everyone in sharp focus. Find out at each aperture, how much DOF you have and make the necessary adjustment. ISO at 800 is my max for the acceptable noise level based on a Nikon D3. The higher your ISO, the more sensitive it is to ambient light when your aperture close down and/or your shutter speed increase. Then I will use a noise reduction software such as noiseware NR to keep the noise down on post processing.

D3 is top notch! You only go up to iso800?
Then how abt D90? is its iso800 noise level acceptable? actually i intend to buy and bump up to iso800 and 1600 (for extreme situation).

 

[cichlid]

To flash or not?

If I have a D90, i will try not to flash and see how is the effect.

 

[noobphotog]

sorry for the slight OT here... how do you trigger "fill flash"? do you need to set something to make it fill flash instead of just firing the flash?

 

[Deming86]

I would lower the ISO, lower the flash exposure compensation, prolong exposure time and use just the right amount of light =D Gotta do some trial and error to get nice combi to illuminate the subject + capture ambient light =D

 

[Old Man Lee]

if u r a purist, u should not be using a DSLR, autofocus camera or flash

Like to hear you guy opinion on this .

Senerio: indoor with tungsten down light , with a 17 -50mm 2.8 lens and ISO 1600 ...you can achieve 1/ 60 shutter speed .

Do you use flash or not .

for me , try no to as i think flash kill the whole amopshere.