Let me set the stage ...
The costume party was a surprise. We were taken up to the amazing
costume room at the top of the building, picked or made up our costumes
and went back down to a dance party with rock and soul oldies, wine and
snacks.
I seemed to be the only one with a decent camera at hand, and felt the
event should be immortalized. However, I wasn't willing to miss
participation. So I wandered back and forth between dancing, chatting,
drinking and grabbing the camera for a few shots. The overhead shots
were taken by climbing up on a chair, portraits by stopping folks for a
moment and flashing them, etc. I tried some closer up dancing shots, but
they were mostly unsuccessful.
Thoughts of dragging shutters, second curtain and so forth were far from
my mind. I probably should have thought that the way I held the camera
for portraits format portraits was putting the flash at the bottom of
the camera. Shooting from below eye level was good for perspective and
keeping eyeglass reflections down, but had some troublesome, eerie, lit
from below effects in a few shots, mostly corrected in post.
Dragging the shutter would have worked for some shots, but not for many,
as they included folks dancing the jitterbug and other less well
defined :-) dances with quick movements. I don't think even 1/30 would
have avoided some blur ghosts.
Manual? Not under those circumstances! Everybody in constant motion, no
idea from shot to shot the distance to subjects. In fact, often many
subjects at different distances in the same shot. It's amazing what can
be done in post to match exposures for different distances. The person
right in front of the flash and the people a dozen feet away can be
balanced.
I had great fun at the party, got a lot of good snaps (If I say so
myself.) for the participants AND I learned a whole lot about my new
camera in the bargain.
I've posted more images, including at least one of the elusive Moose.
Can you find him?
<http://galleries.moosemystic.net/MooseFoto/index.php?gallery=FeastOfFools>
(Bob's off-line and Chuck and Mike are not eligible.)
Some pretty cool costumes anyway.
Moose
Chuck Norcutt wrote:
> This shot is taken at 28mm equivalent at 1/60. As I just commented on
> Nathan's party pics, you could have gotten much better background
> lighting by "dragging the shutter". I'm sure you could have gotten away
> with 1/15 or maybe even slower. That would be a two stop brightening of
> the background without affecting the flash exposure.
>
> I don't know what modes the G11 has that would allow that but shooting
> flash in manual mode is a piece of cake with digital. For this dark
> venue try setting the shutter at 1/15 and then take a couple of test
> pics by varying the aperture until you get what looks good. With a
> little practice you can nail it within one or two test shots.
>
> I seem to to recall that I gave you this same lesson with regards to the
> 5D and 540-EZ flash. :-)
>
> Chuck Norcutt
>
>
> Moose wrote:
>
>
>> So why flash with ISO 3200? Well, I should have lowered the ISO between
>> shots, but I was trying not to fall off the folding chair I was standing
>> on, avoid kicking over my wine and catch shots of dancing people. The
>> answer is in some other shots, same time and place. Neither of these
>> will make the gallery cut, but they show the dramatic difference in
>> useful flash reach at ISO 3200 vs. 800. Greater sensitivity allows both
>> ambient light and flash lighting to vastly extend the ramge to cover the
>> whole room, rather than just what's up close. They are JPEGs right out
>> of the camera, simply downsampled.
>> <http://galleries.moosemystic.net/MooseFoto/index.php?gallery=Tech/G11/ISO-FlashRange>
>>
--
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