Indoor Flash Family/Group Photography

[Enbee]

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Hello, 

I recently purchased an SF-26 Flash to accompany my MP-240. I was shooting with a 50mm lux. With flash at TTL - and ISO and Shutter at auto and Aperture at 1.4 - I got a lot of noise (ISO was jumping to upwards of 1500). The room was partially lit. I have the following questions:

 

1. Should I set the ISO to a particular number - the resulting shots had a lot of noise (obviously) - but I assumed that with flash and auto ISO - the ISO will go down a very low number automatically (that didn't happen). 

 

2. I am always worried taking increasing the f-stop - because I fear that the light will go down (but then part of the subjects become blurry - due to low DOF). 

 

3. What angle should I put my flash at? Should it be a bounce from a ceiling or pointing at them directly? How does one decide on that?

 

4. When can I use the slave setting?

 

Any other suggestions for such shoots (based on the existing gear) will be highly appreciated! 

Thanks,

Nitesh

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[Luke_Miller]

When using flash I set a fixed ISO value appropriate to the scene and available flash power.  I prefer bounced flash, but the SF-26 is not particularly high powered and bounced flash takes a lot more flash power. By having the camera set to Auto the camera attempted to balance available light with the flash output, which is why you got ISO 1500.  This is a nice feature and can result in more attractive flash shots, but can also have unintended results.  If you want the camera to ignore any available light when calculating the TTL flash exposure you might try setting the shutter speed to the x-sync setting (the red lightning bolt on the dial).