off Camera Flash and dark ambient light, any tips?
Discussion
I did my first session (as an amateur) yesterday using a single off camera flash and soft box.
The setting was a small room (about the size of a single garage) with a large window at one end, and some candles and low power table lights to provide ambient lighting. The day was grey and overcast, so no sunlight beaming in and what daylight was there was flat.
I was going to follow Scott Kelbys advice from here:
http://www.digitalcameraworld.com/2015/08/28/photo...
mainly this bit
" First I turn off the flash, switch to Manual mode and set the shutter speed to 1/125 sec. It’s a nice, safe starting point that just works.
Next, I move the f/stop until the meter inside the viewfinder shows the exposure is correct – not under or over-exposed, the proper exposure. On Nikons, this meter appears on the right inside your viewfinder; for Canons, it’s along the bottom.
If you find that you can’t get to an f/stop that makes a proper exposure (it can get pretty dark in a church), you may have to raise your ISO a bit."
So I set my D5100 to 125 and F5.6 but when I went through his process about the ambient light test I had to turn the ISO up significantly to even make a dint on the light meter. I was afraid that i would introduce too much noise with such a high ISO so turned it back and thought I'd press on and see what I got.
My intention was not to just light the model (my god daughter, so nothing spoiled with just practicing!) with the flash but to capture the ambient light, especially the candles and flames in the fire. So I tuned the flash down a lot to avoid that "Flashy" look.
As i took them I frequently reviewed the shots on the camera screen and all looked ok. Foolishly I did not check the histogram.
When i put them into LR however they were all way too dark and although LR was able to recover most of them I was disappointed with my efforts.
So I'm interested in how others may have approached this shoot? Would it have been ok to turn the ISO up to over 2000 or is that to be avoided at all costs?
Was I on a loser straight away as there simply was insufficient ambient light to provide a good balance with (Scotts images show a church which looks lovely, sadly I did not have that type of ambient light to start with!)
Any other advice would be welcome, this is a whole new bag of learning for me but something I want to do well, cheers.
The setting was a small room (about the size of a single garage) with a large window at one end, and some candles and low power table lights to provide ambient lighting. The day was grey and overcast, so no sunlight beaming in and what daylight was there was flat.
I was going to follow Scott Kelbys advice from here:
http://www.digitalcameraworld.com/2015/08/28/photo...
mainly this bit
" First I turn off the flash, switch to Manual mode and set the shutter speed to 1/125 sec. It’s a nice, safe starting point that just works.
Next, I move the f/stop until the meter inside the viewfinder shows the exposure is correct – not under or over-exposed, the proper exposure. On Nikons, this meter appears on the right inside your viewfinder; for Canons, it’s along the bottom.
If you find that you can’t get to an f/stop that makes a proper exposure (it can get pretty dark in a church), you may have to raise your ISO a bit."
So I set my D5100 to 125 and F5.6 but when I went through his process about the ambient light test I had to turn the ISO up significantly to even make a dint on the light meter. I was afraid that i would introduce too much noise with such a high ISO so turned it back and thought I'd press on and see what I got.
My intention was not to just light the model (my god daughter, so nothing spoiled with just practicing!) with the flash but to capture the ambient light, especially the candles and flames in the fire. So I tuned the flash down a lot to avoid that "Flashy" look.
As i took them I frequently reviewed the shots on the camera screen and all looked ok. Foolishly I did not check the histogram.
When i put them into LR however they were all way too dark and although LR was able to recover most of them I was disappointed with my efforts.
So I'm interested in how others may have approached this shoot? Would it have been ok to turn the ISO up to over 2000 or is that to be avoided at all costs?
Was I on a loser straight away as there simply was insufficient ambient light to provide a good balance with (Scotts images show a church which looks lovely, sadly I did not have that type of ambient light to start with!)
Any other advice would be welcome, this is a whole new bag of learning for me but something I want to do well, cheers.
Capturing realistic looking candlelight will require hi ISO. No way of getting around that law of physics 
. It sounds like you're trying to balance three different sources, all different color temperatures. The candles and flames, the window light, and the flash.
I usually start with flash off, and dial in the right exposure for the ambient light. Then add flash and adjust until the blend if light looks good. With the mix of softbox and very warm ambient, I'd be careful about putting too much flash as it will throw the rest of the lighting out of balance and difficult to correct in post without a fair amount of work.
. It sounds like you're trying to balance three different sources, all different color temperatures. The candles and flames, the window light, and the flash. I usually start with flash off, and dial in the right exposure for the ambient light. Then add flash and adjust until the blend if light looks good. With the mix of softbox and very warm ambient, I'd be careful about putting too much flash as it will throw the rest of the lighting out of balance and difficult to correct in post without a fair amount of work.
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