[noob question] taking photos in restaurants/pubs

[lukipelaa]

ok.. so i have at my disposal a d80, sb600 and a 17-50mm f2.8 and i have not exactly been playing around with flash often.. and i've been asked by friends to help out in taking shots for their cocktail party...can u guys give me tips on how to take non over-exposed shots for people (group and singles)... and i assume i shld be using af-s or af-a?

cheers...

[aim54x]

I would use aperture priority or manual and keep that lens between f/2.8 and f/4 and using at stofen cap on the sb-600 if I cant bounce off a ceiling. I would probably go with AF-S (single focus) and leave the flash in TTL but evaluate and if you find that you need to bump the flash down do so (or if you shoot manual like me, just ramp up your shutter speed a little). I would probably keep the ISO between 400 and 800 not any higher.

HTH

Cheers
Cameron

[lukipelaa]

ok i tried playing arnd with AP mode in and about so far with the flash and the flash emits out 2 small flashes before it actually takes a photo... whats the reason for that may i ask?

[gstark]

That's the camera's metering system at work. There are some pre-flashes that allow the camera to determine how much light to emit during the actual image making flash. It's normal and expected behaviour.

I would also switch to spot metering, and in order to properly evaluate the images on your LCD, start to learn how to read your histogram. Simply looking at the image on the LCD is very unreliable, as it is not really a view of the image. The LCD is not a calibrated monitor, for instance.