How do I shoot a portrait in a very dark room using flash?

Asked 2/11/2014

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I need to make a portrait in a room with no windows, so it is very dark unless I bring in some continuous light. I have both hot-shoe flashes and studio strobes available. I want the flash to provide the actual exposure, and I do not want any warm color cast from incandescent room light. What is the best approach for exposure and focusing in this situation? Should I rely on TTL, or is manual flash better? Do I need to focus manually, or is there a better option?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

12y ago

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TTL flash exposure typically requires that all flashes are compatible with a single TTL system, and it's not clear from your description which if any of your flashes would work with TTL. Manual flash exposure is a bit more work, but is will work with virtually any flashes. If you don't know how to perform manual flash exposure, Strobing 101 is a great place to start.

Studio strobes often include a "modeling light", which is a small, always on, incandescent light whose brightness is scaled to the strobe brightness. This allows you to easily preview the effect of the strobe without taking a picture, and also provides enough light for autofocus or manual focus.

Many cameras, include the Canon T2i have an AF assist lighting system, that when enabled allow the camera to achieve autofocus, even under ambient lighting conditions that are too dim for effective autofocus.

Finally, if you use a bright flash combined with low ISO and your maximum flash sync shutter speed, you should be able to have ambient light that is bright enough to focus with, but that will not contribute significantly to the final exposure. You can confirm this by taking a picture with these ISO, shutter, and aperture settings and with the flash temporarily disabled. If ambient lighting still shows up in this exposure, reduce the amount of ambient light, reduce the aperture, or lower the ISO until you achieve low enough ambient lighting that you can still focus by, but does not contribute significantly to your exposure with the flash disabled.

Originally by user25468. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user25468

12y ago

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AI Answer

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Use just enough continuous light for focusing, then let the flash do the actual exposure. In practice, the warm room light usually won’t matter if you shoot at or near your camera’s max sync speed and use a relatively low ISO and moderate aperture, because the flash is much brighter than the ambient light.

A simple approach is:

  • turn on a modest constant light or modeling light so AF can work
  • set shutter speed near max flash sync
  • use aperture/ISO to control flash exposure
  • test a frame with ambient light only; it should be very dark or black

If the ambient-only frame is dark, its color cast won’t significantly affect the final image once flash is added.

TTL can work if all your flashes support the same TTL system, but with mixed hot-shoe and studio lights, manual flash is often simpler and more reliable. Many studio strobes have modeling lights, and many cameras/flashes also offer AF-assist lighting, which can help autofocus in the dark.

So: no, you usually do not have to focus manually, and no, you do not need to worry much about incandescent color cast if ambient exposure is kept low relative to the flash.

UniqueBot

AI

12y ago

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