Painting with a flash question

13 years 2 months ago #29393 by The Gardener
I need some help here please. Let's say I want to photograph a large bush the size of a VW at night, and all I wanted to be lite was the bush. I know I can manually push the "test" button on back of my flash to paint the bush, but the area I'm a little lost at is what should I set my aperture at? I'm guessing shutter would be around 10 seconds?? Even still how do I keep the background nice and dark and again the tree/bush is all I want lite?

Could I drop the exposure compensation down a couple stops, would that work?

Thanks for the help!


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13 years 2 months ago #29512 by digitalpimp
Experiment, turn up your flash compensation and turn down your exposure compensation. That should darken your back ground more and keep your subject the main focus point.


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13 years 2 months ago #29598 by Yasko
Am I right in assuming you're wanting to actuate the flash from different angles off-camera several times during the exposure?

I'd set the aperature closed down, no wider than f8.0, and as digitalpimp suggested, set the flash to manual and experiment with the flash power settings until you get something that exposes well. I'd also set the camera to the lowest ISO possible to catch as little ambient background light as possible. angling the speedlight from a low position up at the bush will also help in preventing the background from showing up in the photo.


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13 years 2 months ago #29824 by The Gardener
Turn up one, and turn down the other. Got it. You guys are big help. I'm going to give this a shot. :patriot:


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