Umm, oh, err, help?

Fenster

I've been asked (well my camera was asked for, but I refused to give it up) to go to a small event tomorrow where I'll be in a room with Bertie and some of his top bigwigs for a few hours, and I really don't want to make a mess of it.

Any last minute advice from all of you veterans on the proper use of the Sigman DG-500 Super flash, as I'm still getting to grips with the bloody thing.

Will be using my f/2.8 28mm and my f/1.8 50mm lenses.

ARGINITE

Try not to throw it at him
Sorry couldnt help myself.

mikeanywhere

tell him how much you love his work when you ask him to pout his lips and stick his arse out ............


On a serious note, do you have a diffuser & can you stop down the flash so as not too strong?

monkeyfudge

Well I found Bertie makes for a good silhouette.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/monkeyfudge/258778749/in/set-72157594309452311/

Fenster

Well I was going to casually mention that I'm a Bupa member,

And aye, I was going to go down two or three stops with it. No diffuser (...yet).

Xios

Shout abuse at him for killing an intergalactic race of arctic monkeys and flick matches at him, i swear he won't forget you if you do that.

Other than that, gratz on the chance to photo him, should be a nice asset to your portfolio.

gandalf

Hmmmm I think a 28mm or a 50mm aren't appropriate you should use a 9mm

magicbastarder

tell him he's wearing too much makeup.

Fajitas!

I wouldn't use the flash at all if you don't have a diffuser. You could risk using some paper, but looking unprofessional...though there will be a smell of burnt paper in the air.

With a 50 1.8 and 28 2.8 on a 1.6 crop, you should be getting some pretty good results without flash.

Assuming there's other photographers there, you might even be able to use their flashes to your advantage?

Good luck!

Fenster

It went okay, although I guess the self is the harshest critic of all.

First was the touch of penis-envy when two national paper photographers turned up with EOS 1D Mk. II's that had rather expensive glass on the front. Compare it to me with my 400D, hundred euro lens, and flash that I barely know how to operate.

Second I made a cock of metering, I either overexposed or underexposed a lot of photos. Metering is always something I've handled badly, anyone who's so inclined is very welcome to give me a crash course in it tomorrow.

Third the camera made a cock of white balance - I will never figure why there is no setting for sodium lighting on most cameras I've so far had my hands on. How do I take a custom white balance reading with a 400D? The only thing I recall of it was that it was fiddly.

For all of that, I still managed to get a few really cracking photos. I don't know when I will have them online as I feel I have a chance of selling some to the local papers - I don't like watermarking so I think I will simply refrain from posting them until I know one way or the other.

Fajitas!

Good to hear you got a few crackers...

And shur, all the faults, well, that's what photoshop is for...


/run, duck and cover!

Fenster

I'll have the laptop with me tomorrow so I'll be able to go and show them off then.

5uspect

Well if you shot in RAW you shouldn't have to worry about white balance and it may even help you recover some of those poorly metered shots.

If the 400D is similar to the 350D then to set a custom WB you take a shot of something white under your lighting enviorment then go to the menu, find the custom WB setting and scroll to your calibration shot, select it and thats it! Make sure that custom WB is selected as your shooting white balance of course!

Fionn

good deal !

the event that i got to shoot at Bertie was almost a disaster for me because i had just the one camera (EOS 350D)and i had a 70-200 lens on. I had been taking crowd shots and suddenly he was here and caught me by surprise, yes it was with some envey that i looked at the news peeps with their two big cameras one with a portrait lens and the other sporting a huge zoom. It took abit of juggling to change lens and not get jostled out of the way.

here's Bertie in a zoomed in sort of way



after this he all but walked on top of me

311

Heres another bertie shot:D

5uspect

now all you need to do is add in the Ronan O'Gara arm...

Fenster

I'm an attention whore, I threw up some photos. Click for my blog spiel:



And the Flickr set

JMcL

Fenster wrote:

Second I made a cock of metering, I either overexposed or underexposed a lot of photos. Metering is always something I've handled badly, anyone who's so inclined is very welcome to give me a crash course in it tomorrow.

I'd suggest switching to manual, get the exposure right for the scene, and leave it there. Since you're in a room where the light isn't really going to change that much, you should be there or thereabouts for your shots. Also, shoot in raw as it'll give you a bit more wriggle room

Fenster wrote:

Third the camera made a cock of white balance - I will never figure why there is no setting for sodium lighting on most cameras I've so far had my hands on.

If it's sodium light (ie streetlamps), I'm not sure there's much you can do about white balance. There's not really any component of the light left except red

Fenster wrote:

How do I take a custom white balance reading with a 400D? The only thing I recall of it was that it was fiddly.

If you have something in the frame which is neutral grey, or white, you can use the colour dropper to pick a white balance from this in post processing. Otherwise, use a grey card, or prefereably a whitebalance card. Take a photo of it reflecting the light from the scene with the card filling the center of the frame, then in the menu there's an option to pick white balance, which allows you to select the photo, then just opt to use custom white balance on the back. Alternatively you can use the eye dropper in PP to pick the WB if you're shooting raw, which is what I usually do.

Also, those white balance cards/disks etc are ludicrously expensive. I made my own from two sides of a plastic milk container sandwiched together, which works well either by taking a photo of it, or by shooting through it. I doubt whether it's 100% neutral, but it's good enough for me!