I coerced/bribed my little mister to let me practice on him this afternoon at the same time I have a shoot for tomorrow (5 kids ages 1-8 - yikes!). At 4 pm the sun will still be pretty high, and I'm worried about squinting and hot, blown, sunny spots. So, I found a fairly large patch of even shade, but if he faces the light, it's still bright enough to cause squinting. So, I turned him around and tried filling in with the shoot-thru umbrella. If I get him too close to the edge of the shade, as I'd like, the bright ground causes squinting, so he has to really be in the shade. I forgot to gel the flash for this practice session, and otherwise I'm just not thrilled with my results. Do I need to move the umbrella closer, as close as possible without being in the frame, in order to get nicer catchlights? I'm still getting raccoon eyes here. Help?! (These are super fast, simple shots, just to get an idea of what I've got going on.)
Or am I just being crazy critical??

1


2


3 - a little squinting here, but maybe the nicest light?

Originally Posted by Elaine Do I need to move the umbrella closer, as close as possible without being in the frame, in order to get nicer catchlights? I'm still getting raccoon eyes here. Help?! (These are super fast, simple shots, just to get an idea of what I've got going on.) Or am I just being crazy critical?? I think that maybe you are being a bit too critical. These appear to be very well executed....but lets pick at them a bit? The first does appear to have a bit of the racoon look, but not so much in my opinion to be a major problem. Of more interest to me is the hard edged shadow under his chin. That, and the smallish catchlights tell me that perhaps the lightsource was indeed too far away. Moving it closer.....just outside the frame...should soften any shadows created by the flash and also will bump up the size of the catchlights. I like the mix of ambient and flash here. Aside from that one shadow it appears very natural. 1 2This second shot exhibits a bit more of that racoon look. My suggestion here is to move the flash again just outside the frame and around to camera left and a bit higher than it was located in this shot. The shadow from his nose is giving it away as a flashed shot. Can you see how the bottom of the shadow is even with the bottom of his nose?....telling us that he was sidelit as opposed to lit naturally from above? When I do shots with a slightly turned head I usually either short light.....that is light the side of his face that is turned away from the camera....or else I light from an angle that will be straight on to the direction he is facing and let the shadows fall off along the sides of the face. Raise it up a bit....get it closer. 3 - a little squinting here, but maybe the nicest light? I agree....maybe the nicest light. What exactly do you not like about this (other than wanting larger catchlights?). I like the angle of the light though again it could stand to be a tag higher....and much closer....but this is a beautiful shot of a handsome young fella!!!

I read somewhere that the bottom of the umbrella should never be below the eyes. I have tried that and don't agree, but I do think your light was a tad low here in general.

I think you are definately on the right track, and if what you shoot tommorrow is of the quality of any of these shots you will have faired well. It will be tougher though with younger kids. If they are super active, dont be afraid to forego the umbrella for a solution that is more portable and better suited for chasing them down.

I think the white balance ...balance....here looks fine. If you gel the flash it could help you to get a little more plausable warmth out of it, but if the lighting conditions are the same......what you have done here works.

Lighten up a little Elaine! These look great....You'll do fine.

Elaine,
there are only two rules about using umbrellas outdoors:
1) get them as close as possible
2) don't forget to gel your flash.
And remember: you loose one stop when you use a shoot-through, but you gain one stop if you use silver reflective

Thank you very much, Jeff and Nik!!

Jeff...on that last shot, what I didn't like was his slight squint/furrowed brow. So it seemed that I couldn't land on a non-squint with nice light shot. And here I thought my light was too high and contributing to the raccoon eyes! Hah! But I can see what you're saying about the nose shadow in #2. I shot these with my 70-200 f/4 in the 185-200 range and the umbrella was closer to me than it was to him, so I definitely need to move it in. And I need to remember a gel. I'm half tempted to just get the parents to hold a big, white sheet as a reflector, but I think that could cause squinting as well. We'll see how it goes. Thanks for the pointers!

PS - By the way, I'm 5'7" and my flash was higher than my eye level, and for these shots, my son was sitting on the ground and I was on my knees, so the bottom of the umbrella shouldn't have been below his eyes at all. Perhaps the fact that it was too far away made it appear lower than it was?

Originally Posted by Elaine Thank you very much, Jeff and Nik!! Jeff...on that last shot, what I didn't like was his slight squint/furrowed brow. So it seemed that I couldn't land on a non-squint with nice light shot. And here I thought my light was too high and contributing to the raccoon eyes! Hah! But I can see what you're saying about the nose shadow in #2. I shot these with my 70-200 f/4 in the 185-200 range and the umbrella was closer to me than it was to him, so I definitely need to move it in. And I need to remember a gel. I'm half tempted to just get the parents to hold a big, white sheet as a reflector, but I think that could cause squinting as well. We'll see how it goes. Thanks for the pointers! PS - By the way, I'm 5'7" and my flash was higher than my eye level, and for these shots, my son was sitting on the ground and I was on my knees, so the bottom of the umbrella shouldn't have been below his eyes at all. Perhaps the fact that it was too far away made it appear lower than it was?

Elaine,
people NEVER squint at the flash. They may blink, but the eyelid reaction, while being very fast, cannot deal with the speed of electronic flashes, so it only can happen afterwards, if at all.
If you wanna study the catchlight behavior, you don't have to torture anybody . You don't even need a camera. Use a pocket mirror, a desklamp (or a chandelier, or any other light source of a size you are thinking of using:-) and look at the reflection in your own eye. What you see is what you get, 100%.

Originally Posted by Elaine Thank you very much, Jeff and Nik!! Jeff...on that last shot, what I didn't like was his slight squint/furrowed brow. So it seemed that I couldn't land on a non-squint with nice light shot. And here I thought my light was too high and contributing to the raccoon eyes! Hah! But I can see what you're saying about the nose shadow in #2. I shot these with my 70-200 f/4 in the 185-200 range and the umbrella was closer to me than it was to him, so I definitely need to move it in. And I need to remember a gel. I'm half tempted to just get the parents to hold a big, white sheet as a reflector, but I think that could cause squinting as well. We'll see how it goes. Thanks for the pointers! PS - By the way, I'm 5'7" and my flash was higher than my eye level, and for these shots, my son was sitting on the ground and I was on my knees, so the bottom of the umbrella shouldn't have been below his eyes at all. Perhaps the fact that it was too far away made it appear lower than it was?

Its simply too far away. One thing I fight when using an umbrella in this fashion is keeping it's edges out of the frame. If it were higher than you standing up, and he was sitting...its probably too high. It should have been below you in that case, but slightly higher than him. Getting it closer will bring all the goodness in, and work your flash less.

Are you using manual or ettl flash?

Originally Posted by Nikolai Elaine, people NEVER squint at the flash. They may blink, but the eyelid reaction, while being very fast, cannot deal with the speed of electronic flashes, so it only can happen afterwards, if at all. If you wanna study the catchlight behavior, you don't have to torture anybody . You don't even need a camera. Use a pocket mirror, a desklamp (or a chandelier, or any other light source of a size you are thinking of using:-) and look at the reflection in your own eye. What you see is what you get, 100%.

Thanks, Nik. I didn't mean to imply he was squinting at the flash. It was very bright outside and he was simply squinting at the bright patches of sun spilling all over the ground beyond our shady patch. If I turned him towards any of that light, which provided nice light for the photo, he squinted. I had hoped to make use of that reflected light with a little help from the flash.

Originally Posted by jeffreaux2 Its simply too far away. One thing I fight when using an umbrella in this fashion is keeping it's edges out of the frame. If it were higher than you standing up, and he was sitting...its probably too high. It should have been below you in that case, but slightly higher than him. Getting it closer will bring all the goodness in, and work your flash less. Are you using manual or ettl flash?

Closer...got it.

I'm using ettl with negative flash compensation.

Originally Posted by Elaine Closer...got it. I'm using ettl with negative flash compensation.

Okay....ettl

Assuming you are using a manual exposure mode (if I remember you shoot mostly manual?)...go ahead and set an exposure without flash using your histogram as you normally would. Then just flick on the flash. I normally switch from no flash to flash by simply switching the STE2 on or off. In any event, starting off with the FEC set at "0" would be a good start, but you may indeed need to use some negative FEC. You lose a LOT of light through the umbrella so starting at zero FEC rather than -1 1/3 with a bare flash should get you close. For fun, you can then either add or subtract iso or aperture to affect the exposure of the background. FWIW, using an umbrella requires a lot of power even as fill. If you can keep your shutter speed at or below your cameras flash synch speed the 580 will be able to offer a full power discharge in ettl. If above that synch speed and using high speed synch....you wont get full power.

...yeah....CLOSER!

Originally Posted by jeffreaux2 Okay....ettl ... In any event, starting off with the FEC set at "0" would be a good start, but you may indeed need to use some negative FEC. You lose a LOT of light through the umbrella so starting at zero FEC rather than -1 1/3 with a bare flash should get you close.

I'm curious about this. I thought ETTL automatically figures out your flash setting based on a pre-flash. So why would using an umbrella require the photographer to compensate for it?

Thanks,
-joel

Originally Posted by kdog I'm curious about this. I thought ETTL automatically figures out your flash setting based on a pre-flash. So why would using an umbrella require the photographer to compensate for it? Thanks, -joel

It wouldn't :-) That's the beauty of ETTL (not that I use it much as opposed to manual, but that's me)

Originally Posted by kdog I'm curious about this. I thought ETTL automatically figures out your flash setting based on a pre-flash. So why would using an umbrella require the photographer to compensate for it? Thanks, -joel

ETTL would indeed fire just hard enough to not blow a highlight at zero FEC. In Elaine's case though she is trying to use flash for fill......a subtle rather than apparent addition of light...which ofetn requires negative FEC.

The 580 does use a preflash to determine how much power to fire, but that can be tuned to taste via FEC. What can trick it is a highlight inside the composition that is already outside the histogram. In that case it would be likely that positive FEC would be needed.

Actually I know most of that, Jeff. Although the part about a highlight inside the scene causing the flash to underexpose (requiring more positive FEC) is interesting and might help to explain why I often get inconsistent exposures from my 580EXII using ETTL.

What I was really asking about was this comment:

Originally Posted by jeffreaux2 You lose a LOT of light through the umbrella so starting at zero FEC rather than -1 1/3 with a bare flash should get you close.

That didn't sound right to me, and Nik confirmed it. Using an umbrella shouldn't change how much FEC you need for a scene because the flash is going to crank up the power as required so you don't have to. I'm not trying to put you on the spot here, but just making sure I'm not missing anything.

Thanks,
-joel

Originally Posted by kdog Actually I know most of that, Jeff. Although the part about a highlight inside the scene causing the flash to underexpose (requiring more positive FEC) is interesting and might help to explain why I often get inconsistent exposures from my 580EXII using ETTL. What I was really asking about was this comment: That didn't sound right to me, and Nik confirmed it. Using an umbrella shouldn't change how much FEC you need for a scene because the flash is going to crank up the power as required so you don't have to. I'm not trying to put you on the spot here, but just making sure I'm not missing anything. Thanks, -joel

Im not disagreeing...

In ettl the preflash will enable the speedlight to calculate its output for the exposure and take the umbrella into account. It shouldnt fire hard enough to blow a highlight. With a bare flash...more negative FEC would be needed to ease up on the harsh shadows it produces. With the umbrella....and the light falloff from its center to its edges....along with the fact that it is a much larger source, the shadows will be softer to begin with...and so it can be used with less negative FEC than a simple bare flash...or with more power than a bare flash if you want it that way.....and still not produce those ugly "I used a flash" shadows. The key to really well done fill in my opinion being that the flash creates no "new" shadows that are apparent from it's own use. An umbrella and it's soft edged shadows allows some room to err in this regard.

In any event...when shooting outdoors I usually use zero FEC as a staring point with an umbrella....and -1 1/3 FEC with a bare flash.....though often use a bare flash as low as -3 FEC.

I think I understand now, Jeff. If I might paraphrase, it's not so much that you need the increased FEC with the umbrella, it's more that you can. Thanks for your patience.

Cheers,
-joel

Originally Posted by kdog I think I understand now, Jeff. If I might paraphrase, it's not so much that you need the increased FEC with the umbrella, it's more that you can. Thanks for your patience. Cheers, -joel

Exactly....

My apologies for confusing the facts without being clearer.

Jeff suggested I post some of my results of my fill-w/-umbrella shoot, so here are a few...

All of these were taken with the Canon 40D on manual with the 70-200 f/4 L IS at f/4.
580 EXII flash gelled with a 1/3 CTB (or maybe 1/2?) shot through umbrella, in front and to the right of me. Flash fired ETTL via the STE2.
Cloudy WB.
All edited in LR2.

posted this in People already...
1/200, ISO 200
flash at -2/3 FEC
1 - four siblings and a cousin


1/160, ISO 200
flash at -2/3 FEC
2 - mother and son (could have gone with more negative FEC here, I think)


1/160, ISO 200
flash at -1 1/3 FEC
3 - sisters


1/160, ISO 200
flash at - 1 1/3 FEC
4 - cute kiddo


PS - I learned I need a person or a weight to hold my light stand. Thankfully, Grandma helped out in that department for this shoot. I learned I need more practice with the placement of the flash/umbrella. I learned to make sure I turn my flash ON before I start shooting! I'm thankful for the STE2. I could probably do this again. :)

Originally Posted by kdog I'm curious about this. I thought ETTL automatically figures out your flash setting based on a pre-flash. So why would using an umbrella require the photographer to compensate for it? Thanks, -joel

What happens when you use TTL on your film slr?

Right now I can't use any other mode but ttl.



By the way ma'am, I really like your third shot, and nice exposure of light, Looks like you went 2-3 stops above your original settings.

Props.

Originally Posted by Chile Chef What happens when you use TTL on your film slr? Right now I can't use any other mode but ttl. By the way ma'am, I really like your third shot, and nice exposure of light, Looks like you went 2-3 stops above your original settings. Props.

TTL was the precurser to ETTL. They are of the same ilk, though a generation or so removed.

Why would you gel your flash at all? Is your flash not daylight balanced?

I didn't use any type of gel, just a shoot through on this shot. Doesn't look bad to me.