DSLR Photography Forum

Bought the 580 EX yesterday and I have no idea what I'm doing with this thing. I've started to study the manual and it seems that the flash is going to be a bigger learning curve than the camera. Yiikes. With this shot I'm just going trial and error

not seeing an image here,

No image.

Sorry. I had to turn my computer off early this morning due to a very bad thunderstorm. One of the pitfalls of hosting my own server.

Did you bounce the flash off of the colored walls? There seems a bluish cast to the picture.

Can't really comment much as I have no ecperience of flashguns at all.

I think maybe the lighting is a touch on the harsh side. Nothing that couldn't be overcome by a little post processing. Some kind of light diffuser would be valuble. Bouncing the light off a white ceiling works well too. Is she wearing blue contacts or did you saturate her eye's? if neither, she has awesome colored eyes.

EnglishBob Wrote:Did you bounce the flash off of the colored walls? There seems a bluish cast to the picture.

Can't really comment much as I have no ecperience of flashguns at all.

That makes two of us.

EnglishBob Wrote:Did you bounce the flash off of the colored walls? There seems a bluish cast to the picture.

Can't really comment much as I have no ecperience of flashguns at all.

I bounced it off of the ceiling which is white. Not sure why it shows up a bit different on the web. When I open it up in PS its very warm not bluish and a bit oversaturated. When I print it its near perfect with the exception that the skin is a bit pale due to the harshness of the flash. When I upload it to the net it seems to take away a fair amount of the saturation and leaves it with a different temperature.

Petographer Wrote:I think maybe the lighting is a touch on the harsh side. Nothing that couldn't be overcome by a little post processing. Some kind of light diffuser would be valuble. Bouncing the light off a white ceiling works well too. Is she wearing blue contacts or did you saturate her eye's? if neither, she has awesome colored eyes.

When I picked up the flash there were some diffuser products there but I wanted to do more research on this before I picked up something.

Don't know if this is any better. Just a little adjustment.

If you want a good understanding of Canon EOS flash systems, then BURN THE POORLY TRANSLATED MANUAL and read the EOS Flash FAQ instead, found here: http://photonotes.org/articles/eos-flash/

Pay particular attention to Part II, which explains how flash works in each of the different exposure modes (P, Av, Tv and M.) You need to understand the differences - they all work differently.

Read the FAQ, then a week later read it again. Wait a month, then read it again. It is the ultimate resource on flash with EOS cameras, but it's not an easy subject to grasp all at once.

Just wait, soon you'll want a wireless transmitter and multiple flashes - things really get screwy then! :o

And obviously, post any specific questions you may have.

slejhamer Wrote:If you want a good understanding of Canon EOS flash systems, then BURN THE POORLY TRANSLATED MANUAL and read the EOS Flash FAQ instead, found here: http://photonotes.org/articles/eos-flash/

Pay particular attention to Part II, which explains how flash works in each of the different exposure modes (P, Av, Tv and M.) You need to understand the differences - they all work differently.

Read the FAQ, then a week later read it again. Wait a month, then read it again. It is the ultimate resource on flash with EOS cameras, but it's not an easy subject to grasp all at once.

Just wait, soon you'll want a wireless transmitter and multiple flashes - things really get screwy then! :o

And obviously, post any specific questions you may have.

Gee, you don't make things very simple do you? :/

Petographer Wrote:Gee, you don't make things very simple do you? :/

Blame Canon!!!

Just a note on your colour problem. It may be that you need to convert to sRGB before you save to the web. PS can be a bit painful when you save for the web, many a time I've forgotten and ended up with undersaturated images posted on the net.

StudioJ Wrote:Just a note on your colour problem. It may be that you need to convert to sRGB before you save to the web. PS can be a bit painful when you save for the web, many a time I've forgotten and ended up with undersaturated images posted on the net.

After reading Scott Kelbys Photoshop CS2 for digital photographers it was reccomended to change the camera settings to Adobe color space and to post process in that. Maybe thats what is making things screwy.

slejhamer Wrote:If you want a good understanding of Canon EOS flash systems, then BURN THE POORLY TRANSLATED MANUAL and read the EOS Flash FAQ instead, found here: http://photonotes.org/articles/eos-flash/

Pay particular attention to Part II, which explains how flash works in each of the different exposure modes (P, Av, Tv and M.) You need to understand the differences - they all work differently.

Read the FAQ, then a week later read it again. Wait a month, then read it again. It is the ultimate resource on flash with EOS cameras, but it's not an easy subject to grasp all at once.

Just wait, soon you'll want a wireless transmitter and multiple flashes - things really get screwy then! :o

And obviously, post any specific questions you may have.

Thanks for the suggestions. I will definitely take your advice. After reading the manual it seemed that learning flash photography was going to be more complicated than it was to learn the basics of the DSLR.
I hope to post some pics soon of a Victoria Secret Fashion show I attended tonight. Using my flash and my 85 1.8 lens exclusively.