Maximising light in a dark envronment

[Mr Rotty]

Hi guys,

One of my many roles for work is in the security industry. I'm currently redigning some of the web sites and marketing for work so i'm going out to a few of our venues to take photo's of our staff. My attampts so far have been ordinary as I'm not sure what my settings should be in that type of environment and I'm relatively new to flash photography.

I have the kit lens, (I know what that is now ) and I'm using the SB600, (yer yer I know )

Could you kind people help

[sheepie]

One of the tricks with flash photography a few of us picked up from MHD at Jenolan was this:

Of course, the camera needs to be on a tripod.
Use a long exposure - greater than a second if possible
Using the flash handheld, and set at (say) 1/16th or 1/8th, fire off several times while the shutter is open, but from different angles.

This makes for some nicely balanced lighting, rather than direct as you normally get with flash.

Don't know whether this will help in the pics you want, but is worthwhile trying.

[Mr Rotty]

Thanks sheepie

[Aussie Dave]

Mr Rotty
have you been shooting with the flash pointing directly at the staff member, or bouncing the flash off the (hopefully white) ceiling ??

[Mr Rotty]

Hi Dave, I fired off quite a few as an experiment with some directly on, some difussed and others bounced from the ceiling

[Matt. K]

Mr Rotty

Set you D70 to manual mode...F5.6 at 1/125sec. Use direct flash outdoors and bounce it of the ceiling indoors providing the ceiling is low and white. Keep it simple and check your images on the LCD screen. Shoot from about 3 metres. Make sure the flash fires at the same f/stop...f/5.6

[Mr Rotty]

Thanks Matt, I'll experiment with your recommendations