Disappointed with night shots

[Kris]

Hi Guys

I went to a party last night with the D70/Kit Lense using the onboard flash. I was REALLY disappointed with the quality of the shots, in particular the white balance which was just totally off no matter what mode i set.

My friend had this 20D set to full auto and his shots were stunning, far far far better.

What am I doing wrong? All the shots were taken with AUTO WB, Flash in apeature mode.

Im really thinking of changing DSLR's

[DionM]

Onboard flash on any camera is always bad (I will resist this opportunity to make Nikon vs Canon jokes ). Having said that, the 20Ds onboard flash is one of the best I have seen, for the limited times I have used it (mostly as fill-flash).

Does the Nikon onboard flash take advantage of all the Nikon whizz-bang flash stuff, or do you only get that on the external flashes? The Canon onboard flash uses the same E-TTL II system as the external flashes, which helps (plus it has a good GN and is fairly well elevated).

[Kris]

Onboard flash of the Canon compared to the Nikon is like night and day, Canon's is FAR FAR superior and their white balance is just spot on.

I have the SB800 but I couldnt use it last night , didnt want the added luggage as I was travelling light

[MCWB]

I have the SB800 but I couldnt use it last night , didnt want the added luggage as I was travelling light

Seriously, I think that pretty much answers your question. Did you shoot RAW BTW?

When I used onboard flash, Auto WB, ISO400, f/5.6 and FEC -0.7 worked pretty well for me. Mind posting some of the shots? I really doubt the WB issue is related to the flash, more likely some strange lighting/colour balance issue.

[Kris]

Hmm perhaps I should have taken the SB800. Thing is, the Canon was doing out of the box shots far better.

I found the onboard flash when I was shooting was FAR too powerful, and was blowing out the images. I then changed the WB to flash and turned it down 2 stops but they were still far too blown. How can I change the FEC ?

I'll take a look at some tonight and post them.

Also, what is a good replacement for the 17-80 Kit lense and good for low light?

[Oneputt]

Kris I have used that body with the flash indoors on apeture priority and never had a problem. I would not think that it is the flash giving you problems.

[owen]

Hi Kris. I know this is a different environment to what you were shooting, but this was taken with the onboard flash:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v717/ ... cellor.jpg

A lot of other shots in your situations do work out though, and if they appear too bright it's a simple matter of dialling the flash back a notch or two.

[Kris]

Hi Kris. I know this is a different environment to what you were shooting, but this was taken with the onboard flash:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v717/ ... cellor.jpg

A lot of other shots in your situations do work out though, and if they appear too bright it's a simple matter of dialling the flash back a notch or two.

Wow! That is stunning. My lighting conditions were far worse, it was very dark! But what I found was the shots were blue, and the faces werent very warm or natural. The skin looked very shiny...

I will experiement more.

[MCWB]

I found the onboard flash when I was shooting was FAR too powerful, and was blowing out the images.

Oh damn, for sure! To change FEC, hold the flash button (the one you use to pop up the flash) and change the main command dial (I think, one of them changes the flash sync mode, the other changes the FEC). I find onboard with -0.7 FEC is ok, 0 FEC will blow everything out (as you know).

I'm using the 17-55 DX most of the time as my 'low light + flash' lens, and loving it (with SB800 rather than onboard, of course).

[DionM]

As much as I would love to crow about Canon vs Nikon (esp with Oneputt present ) I don't think there would be day and night differences.

It may be something to do with FEC as others have suggsted.

Canon got hammered pretty hard with its early digital PnS units as their flashes were way too powerful (my Powershot G2 is throttled back to -2 FEC and still overexposes on some close up flash work) ... so I guess they have learnt their lesson.

[PiroStitch]

What lens and aperture were you using? Can you please show us some examples? I don't think it's the camera itself as well.

[Kris]

MCWB: Wow! I didnt even know about those settings!!! That is exactly what I had to do.

How is FEC different from changing the WB to Flash , and increasing or decreasing the amount?

I will test the FEC out alot now.

Apeture i think was around F8?

17-55 is a lovely lens but I cannot afford that at present. What other choices are available?

[Kris]

Looking through the shots on the camera menu

Taken with matrix metering, F3.5 all the way to F10 for some reason. Built in Flash TTL.

It appears I have alot to learn about the camera - my outdoor shots are just brillant. Its controlling it indoors with low light I am having difficulties.

can someone give me some tips? It appears im blaming the equipment for my lack of photography skills

[Mj]

Kris... shouldn't be a camera problem, you'll need to have a good look at all your settings to work out what's going wrong.

I took some indoor shots just the other day with Auto -2 WB and found FEC -1.7 to give me the best 'nature' looking result. Of course this will change with each situation... oh also I set the flash to rear curtain to fill out the background and not wash out the foreground. Again... the right settings depend on your specific situation.

The fact that the Canon managed to get the shots you were after is simply that it was set appropriately for the scene at the time.
I suggest, if you can, compare the exif etc of the canon shots to yours to help you work out what is not set correctly.

[Catcha]

Kris was it with these kind of lighting situation

http://www.dslrusers.net/viewtopic.php?t=12182


As I was experimenting with FEC i went a bit over board with some, nice balance was the middle

This was indoor strobe light disco conditions

[owen]

Hi Kris.

To put it simply, the difference between white balance and flash exposure compensation is that the white balance will affect the colours in the image, whereas flash exposure compensation affects how powerful the flash is. So if the flash is too bright, you can turn the power down a bit.

Cheers,
Owen.

[Kris]

Kris was it with these kind of lighting situation

http://www.dslrusers.net/viewtopic.php?t=12182


As I was experimenting with FEC i went a bit over board with some, nice balance was the middle

This was indoor strobe light disco conditions

Yes, the exact same situation. bright disco kind of lights, quite dim the exact same environment and alot of my shots came out similar but alot were blurred also.

Mj, it apepars that way. the 20D was set to 'auto' for everything with the flash turned on. I will compare his EXIF to mine..

I think ill need to read up on the flash settings, this appears to be where I went wrong.

For indoor shots like this, what apeture is best?

[MCWB]

How is FEC different from changing the WB to Flash , and increasing or decreasing the amount?

I will test the FEC out alot now.

Changing FEC changed the light output of the flash. For example, FEC -0.7 means the flash output is 0.7 stops lower than FEC 0. Hence you won't get the 'OMG flash!' look to your pics, but a more 'natural light', where the flash compensates for the lack of natural light (but doesn't overcompensate like FEC 0). Also play with changing shutterspeed/aperture/ISO to balance flash and natural light (decreased shutter speed or higher ISO or more open aperture -> more natural light and less flash).

Changing the WB to 'flash' changes the colour temperature of the recorded image, just like twiddling with it in your favourite RAW converter does. It doesn't change the exposure value of the scene, just the colour temperature of the light in that scene.

Edit: in terms of what aperture is best, it's a tradeoff between the aperture at which the lens is sharpest (f/8-f/11 for the kit lens isn't it?) and the amount of natural light getting in. Somewhere around f/5.6 is usually a good compromise.

[Kris]

Hi Kris.

To put it simply, the difference between white balance and flash exposure compensation is that the white balance will affect the colours in the image, whereas flash exposure compensation affects how powerful the flash is. So if the flash is too bright, you can turn the power down a bit.

Cheers,
Owen.

Perfect, understand now. Thank you owen

[Kris]

How is FEC different from changing the WB to Flash , and increasing or decreasing the amount?

I will test the FEC out alot now.

Changing FEC changed the light output of the flash. For example, FEC -0.7 means the flash output is 0.7 stops lower than FEC 0. Hence you won't get the 'OMG flash!' look to your pics, but a more 'natural light', where the flash compensates for the lack of natural light (but doesn't overcompensate like FEC 0). Also play with changing shutterspeed/aperture/ISO to balance flash and natural light (decreased shutter speed or higher ISO or more open aperture -> more natural light and less flash)

Changing the WB to 'flash' changes the colour temperature of the recorded image, just like twiddling with it in your favourite RAW converter does. It doesn't change the exposure value of the scene, just the colour temperature of the light in that scene.

Thank you MCWB, any tips for taking shots in this kind of light?

Basic WB,FEC,Apeature settings?

[MCWB]

As in my first post, Auto WB, f/5.6 (depends on lens, I'm happy to go to f/4 or f/2.8 with the 17-55 DX, but that might be a bit soft for the 18-70 DX), shutter speed depends on focal length, if I'm taking the photo around 25 mm, set it to 1/30 s. ISO 200 or 400 usually, you can push it more if you're happy with the noise.

[Kris]

Ill need to research the associate with shutter speed/flocal length

Ill try these settings and see how I go.

Thank you guys

[radar]

Hi Kris,

17-55 is a lovely lens but I cannot afford that at present. What other choices are available?

I see in your signature that you already have the 50mm 1.4. That is a great low light lens. When you can, just use your legs to zoom in/out

Also has the advantage of allowing you to travel light, can then maybe take the SB800.

Cheers,

radar

[Kris]

Hi Radar,

Indeed. I didnt take the SB800 or the 50mm because my friend (with the 20D was going to take the camera so i could go out after the party) so he said just bring the body and a lense - in hindsight I should have packed the 50mm



Learning every day!

[Mj]

Kris... nothing wrong with your lens option or use of onboard flash. Given the problems you've described neither would have helped... I suggest you focus on the real difficulty you experienced in setting up the camera correctly rather than lamenting the truckload of equipment you didn't have with you. The 18-70 + onboard flash would most likely do fine (of course we have not yet seen examples of your attempt). I find that doing a bunch of practice at home and not under pressure to deliver the perfect photograph can go a long way to help sort this kinda thing out... once out 'in the field' I've often buggered things up with wrong setup... most often after a few too many reds !!!

[sirhc55]

Kris - I have been taking pics for years, but I had a client shoot last week where I truly buggered up. Shot the portraits with the D2Hs, 28-75 lens and SB800. Had the D70 with the 70-200 attached and decided to shoot some on this camera as well. Luckily I did. The settings on the D2Hs were totally wrong and not one shot was recoverable - the D70 shots were fine - phew!!!

[Kris]

Thanks guys, it appears I need to do some testing. I might darken my room at home a bit and play around with various flash/aperture settings