I have an engagement shoot tomorrow night around sunset. It's a fireman and his fiance. We are going to park the trucks in front of the fire station with the lights on, and put the couple out in front of them with an umbrella. We are going to use a firehose to make "rain" coming down on the couple.
I am trying really hard to learn off camera flash - I've been using it for awhile, but am not very confident that I'm doing it right. So here is what I plan to do - suggestions are more than welcome - and I am more than willing to throw my lighting plans out the window and do it "right"!!
I will obviously use a tripod -
To start with, I will meter for ambient light - to expose the trucks with the lights. And I will set the camera to that exposure. I'm not sure if I should use Ettl flash or manual - I'm thinking manual. But I'm not sure where to aim my soft box to light the couple, but not get a reflection, or any light on the fire trucks. If I have my light off to the side, aimed at the couple, I will get shadows on their faces, but if I aim the light more straight on to light their faces evenly, I will also light the background...right?
Also, what ISO would be a good starting point for a shoot like this? I will be using my 5D MKII, with 580 EX II Speedlight, and I also have a 580 EX speedlight if I need it. I also could use my studio strobes if I need to, instead of the speed lights.
Comments
Try both ETTL and manual. What harm can it do and it will be good practise. Not sure which light source. Strobe always offers more power if you need it but if the light source is close enough the speedlight should do it.
ISO? As high as you need to set it to keep the shutter at or below sync speed. If the water is on the couple only the flash will freeze the water. You can control the background exposure with the shutter speed. Depending on fall off and the amount of water behind the couple some may blur a little more with a slower shutter speed which may make it look interesting. Of course this is all about distances and what is in the frame.
http://neilvn.com/tangents/flash-photography-techniques/dragging-the-shutter/
What aperture are you planning? Blurred background or trucks in focus. Important to know because this will also effect your background exposure. Pick that first, then ISO based on shutter speed you want.
Since you are so good at giving me advice, how does this sound?
I will have the lights going on the fire trucks, and I will meter for ambient light, but underexpose a little - I want the trucks a little dark, and I want them lit by the flashing red and blue lights. I will put the couple about 10 feet in front of the trucks, with my flash very close to them, set to manual. I know the flash will freeze the water, which I'm not sure I want to do, but if I start trying to figure out how to blur the water in all this, I will go crazy.
I don't know why off camera flash is so confusing to me. I think I have tried to learn it from so many different people, and they all contradict each other. Some use HSS, which is totally different than never using HSS - and then I get the techniques mixed up and nothing works!
Anyway Zenon - thank you for the video - that helps. And thanks for all the advice!!
Oh, I will also need to use 2nd curtain for my flash - right??
Also, I wanted to use the smallest aperture I can to get the starbust effect from the lights. Thank you!
Rudy
Your shoot sounds great, looking forward to seeing your results and hearing how it went and what settings you decided to go with. You say your not very confident in what you're doing but it seems like you've thought it out and considered your options thoroughly. Personally I would always go with a shutter speed I could comfortably hand hold so I could move about and have my flash set to manual in these situations so the exposure on the couple didn't change. Then my iso would be determined byt the f stop I wanted.