Canon 40D or XSi (450D) (1 Viewer)

[ManW_TheUncool]

Originally Posted by Patrick Sun

I also thought I should have used fill flash for the eyes as well (I didn't want to use my on-board dSLR flash except for dire lighting conditions), live and learn.

If not for the indoor lighting color biases and potential red-eye problem, I'd think the on-board flash would be ok for a little fill and catch light. Should be fine for daytime outdoors use for instance, but of course, that's not your situation.


BTW, RE: custom WB setting, I remember someone mentioning (long ago when I first started) using a slightly blue-ish white card to yield a slightly warmer, more pleasant WB. Personally, I like it slightly warmer in many/most cases myself. It all depends on what you're going for. At the end of the day, photography doesn't need to be just about some strict, accurate view of reality. In fact, it's probably rarely about that at all (even if most people think otherwise)...


_Man_

 

[Patrick Sun]

Perhaps I had considered the red-eye effect and then decided to not use flash if possible, that weekend was a swirling target-rich environment.


I just don't want people looking jaundice or icy cold, which would require more post than I'd want to subject myself to for a large batch of photos.

 

[Citizen87645]

BTW, if you do accumulate dust in your 17-55, the cleaning procedure is pretty simple:


http://www.pbase.com/lightrules/drp

 

[Patrick Sun]

Thanks for the dust-cleaning link, hope I don't have to refer to it anytime soon...

 

[Patrick Sun]

So, I was at my high school reunion this past weekend, and I was surprised by the lack of red-eye I got in my photos, even though I was using an external flash with a simple diffuser cap on it. The flash is a Canon 430EX knock-off.


I volunteered to be the reunion photographer (it would allow me to mingle without it being awkward to approach some of the former classmates that I had little to talk about with since we weren't in the same classes together, and it would allow me to slink away if I got into a dull conversation). So, overall, it worked out okay, though I decided to use the shotgun auto-focus mode since I'd be shooting in landscape orientation with usually 2-6 people in the frame. Normally I shoot center-focus, pre-focus on one person, and move the camera lens to re-compose, but with so many people, I just let the camera's AF do the work, and for the most part, it did well enough.


I did end up cropping the photos to mainly get the people in the final composed frame of the shot and get rid of the dark backgrounds and dead space (it was in a somewhat dimly lit lounge on the top floor of a Holiday Inn, so shooting without a flash was out of the question). And it depended on some areas with different lighting conditions where I had to raise the gamma a bit in the photos, and then de-saturate the photos because the colors were really saturated at times.

I used this photo opportunity to hone my use of the dSLR with external flash, and my new Canon EF-S 17-55mm IS USM lens (for the close-up to medium shots) in anticipation of Dragon*Con in early September. I think it went okay. I learned a bit, and will be able to apply some of that knowledge soon as I gaing more confidence in using a dSLR for taking photos of all the craziness that happens at Dragon*Con, and not have to fall back to using my usual point-n-shoot digital cameras.


I was also glad I brought my camera, we got all the attendees together on the dance floor for a big group shot, though I sort of wished I had a wider lens, but we got the shot after all. It was great to make photo-memories for the motley crew of classmates from my high school, and to share them through Facebook/Flickr, which allows other classmates who didn't make it to the reunion to at least see their old friends as well in photos.

 

[Citizen87645]

I stopped by the local university bookstore and ran across a Gary Fong Lighsphere for a measly $20! I just hope I don't lose it.

 

[Patrick Sun]

I was really envious when I saw someone with a collapsible lightsphere at Dragon*Con last weekend. Too bad it's $60 from Fong's website.