Skater's Flash

[Shadowman]

Doing a bit of lowlight shooting, panicked, and went for the flash.

[Manfred M]

A few thoughts for you John.

The D750 is a modern camera and you should be able to push it to ISO 3200 in this type of shooting situation. I might even push it to ISO 6400 if you can live with a bit more noise. It looks like you were shooting wide open, but the lens you were using is not particularly fast.

As you went to flash, you've introduced a mixed light situation. Your flash is set to daylight while the lights at the rink are pushing out much warmer light, so you have ended up with the light looking okay for the subject, but the background is looking off. I'm not sure what flash you are shooting, but my SB-900 came with some gels and a gel holder. Had you used the orange gels, the mixed lighting issue would have been less obvious. You can always get some CTO (Color Temperature Orange) gels if you don't have any with the flash and cut them to size and use gaffer's tape to hold it in place. I'd probably start with 1/2 CTO and see what that does.

The third issue I see is the rapid light drop off and fairly narrow beam. If I were to guess, you were using the popup flash, given the narrow beam of light. I also see that you dragged the shutter to get the shot; 1/60th. If you had shot at a higher ISO or slower shutter speed with the flash, you would have had a greater contribution from the ambient light and would have had a better lit background. I suspect that you would have had an acceptable image at 1/30th as the flash would have frozen the main subjects and the background was already a bit soft.

[Shadowman]

Hi Manfred,

Yes, I was shooting these images with the 55-200mm kit lens at 150 and 98mm respectively, I had the 50mm f/1.8 but didn't like the reach I was getting. I usually use the 85mm f/1.8 for this type of scene and sometimes the 70-300mm. I did try quite a few shots with the ISO set high, but as you stated the mixed lighting was causes havoc with both autofocusing and quality of the images. I thought why not use flash (popup in this situation) and also knew I'd have to worry about red eye; as well as the concern of distracting the skaters. I'll post a few of the high ISO shots as I review. Thanks for the comments and suggestions, I do have an off-camera flash and will try it on next opportunity. Will also experiment more with higher ISOs.

[Shadowman]

Here is a shot with the 50mm, camera settings f/2.5, 1/800sec, ISO 8000, no flash. Edited for noise only and an adjustment for skin tones, the WB was set at daylight and I didn't change during processing.

[Shadowman]

Another at 50mm, ISO 2000, 1/400sec, f/2.0.

[Manfred M]

Here is a shot with the 50mm, camera settings f/2.5, 1/800sec, ISO 8000, no flash. Edited for noise only and an adjustment for skin tones, the WB was set at daylight and I didn't change during processing.

I suspect that Tungsten might have worked a bit better as a WB setting. Ice tends to be white (and I will often use that to pull a custom WB in camera or post).

[Shadowman]

I suspect that Tungsten might have worked a bit better as a WB setting. Ice tends to be white (and I will often use that to pull a custom WB in camera or post).

Manfred,

I'll try tungsten in-camera on my next outing.

[Shadowman]

f/2.5, ISO 4000, 1/320sec, 50mm

I used tungsten WB during processing, applied output sharpening using NIK, had to de-noise twice (forbidden I know), image looks fine from a distance; will have to see if it prints clearly.

[Manfred M]

The colours look a lot better in this most recent posting. You might do a touch better by going manual, but it is a significant improvement over the previous daylight balanced shot.

[bnnrcn]

This has been a very informative thread. Thanks John and Manfred All nice trials but I really like the last image with the lady talking on her mobile phone even while ice skating !

[Shadowman]

This has been a very informative thread. Thanks John and Manfred All nice trials but I really like the last image with the lady talking on her mobile phone even while ice skating !

Hi Binnur,

Thanks for commenting. It's my favorite of the series as well, others are liked for the challenge as well as the learning experience.

[IzzieK]

Yes...very informative thread for your experiment. I thoroughly enjoyed looking at the difference. I like the subsequent images but in the first batch I prefer the ambiance and spontaneous-ness of the second shot.

[Shadowman]

Yes...very informative thread for your experiment. I thoroughly enjoyed looking at the difference. I like the subsequent images but in the first batch I prefer the ambiance and spontaneous-ness of the second shot.

Hi Izzie,

I was also experimenting with the intensity of the flash, I didn't want to startle the skaters, however most of the skaters were aware of my presence as you can see.

Thanks for the comments.

[rpcrowe]

I suspect that the capabilities of the Nikon 55-200mm kit lens and the 50mm f/1.8 lens are somewhat akin to the capabilities of the Canon 55-250mm kit lens and the 50mm f/1.8 Mark-2 lens; neither of which is an optimum choice for low light action shooting due to the relatively slow aperture of the longer lens and the short focal length of the 50mm combined with the not optimum focus speed and accuracy of either lens.

The built-in flash is also not optimum for this type of shooting.

I realize that we cannot add to our equipment base to solve occasional shooting problems such as shooting in this rink. However, I wonder if you might not been ahead by using the 85mm f/1.8 lens that you mentioned and isolating individual skaters.

I don't usually advise purchasing equipment for specific shots but, having a hotshoe flash and flash bracket can fill a pretty much universal need and, IMO, is a great addition to any photographers kit.

I suspect that adding a hotshoe flash to your equipment inventory might have put you ahead in this case. I might have shot this using a Stroboframe, camera flip, flash bracket with the flash elevated above my camera so that the shadows from the flash would be directed down and (hopefully) to the rear of the subject. This bracket would keep your flash above your camera even when the camera is in the vertical configuration.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Quick-Flip-F...3D131528819548


Using a gel to match the color of the ambient light in the rink might solve the difference in the color of your flash and the ambient background. Shooting in RAW would have allowed you to balance both the flash illumination and the ambient illumination.

If I also would have used some sort of a diffuser on my flash such as this one
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Universal-Fo...cAAOSwZG9WijcM

Dragging your shutter when shooting moving subjects in dim light can propose a problem in that you will often get a dual image. One image exposed by the ambient light and the other image by the flash.

I normally suggest bouncing flash but, it this case it would be impossible due to the height and construction of the ceiling. However for a lot of shooting in "normally configured" rooms, bouncing flash combined with a diffuser reflector will give you great lighting. A diffuser reflector can be purchased quite inexpensively. Here is one type that I know can result in good looking bounced flash images.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Flash-di...4AAOSw1S9Wc4Mb

Using this type of rig would require a remote flash cord if your camera cannot trigger the bracketed mounted flash without a cord.

[Shadowman]

Hi Richard,

Moving forward I probably will stick with the 85mm f/1.8 for lowlight skating shots and just limit the ISO level to a value I'm comfortable with artistically and within the capabilities of my camera and processing skills. I do have an SB-R200 external flash that I can use if I continue with the external flash technique.