Night jump shooting with stock flash on Rebel

[Arcticanalog 0]

Anyone have any tricks and tips on how to utilize the stock flash on a canon rebel for night jumps? Settings and everything else?

Thanks dudes!

[Skwrl 56]

How will your subjects be lit up? (i.e., are they using pyrotechnics? glow sticks and head lamps?) The built in flash on a Rebel is pretty meager - you'll have to be right on top of them for it to work at all, in any mode.

Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography

Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

[Arcticanalog 0]

Chems and strobe. Not that lit that up, just the requirements. Although...pyro would be sick.

[Superfletch 1]

You are going to be hard pressed to pull that off with just a Rebel and built in flash. That onboard flash just doesn't have the oomph or spread. As far as settings go, well I would put the camera in M mode. In a night shot there is going to be no real ambient light. The chems and strobes aren't going to give you any real light to work with (unless you shot at the EXACT moment the strobe was going off). Your shutter speed at this point controls the ambient light. You have to stay within sync speed of the flash for the most part which is typically 1/200 - 1/250. You want to shoot fast enough to take care of any motion blur but stay under those upper limits. Depending on how steady your head is in the sky and your subject you might be able to shoot as low as 1/60 to allow the chems to give off some good light that will show in photos, otherwise I'd stick to 1/125-1/250 to insure better stopping of motion. So then you just want to set your aperture for the appropriate DOF you're looking for. This will also help with the perception of focus. (It won't help with auto focus because you just aren't going to be able to use that at night. Focus will have to be locked in manually and you will just have to stay at that distance.) If you open your lens all the way up with aperture your DOF is going to be a lot more narrower and you're going to have to know your distance to subject VERY well or your photos will all be blurry. If you set the aperture tighter for better DOF at some point it's going to steal perceived power from the strobe. Experiment on the ground in similar conditions. Get an approximation of distance and then play with aperture and shutter speed to see if you get any useable photos. Start out with say f5.6 @1/60 10ft away from subject. See what you get.

Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher
D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I
Videographer/Photographer

[Skwrl 56]

Superfletch

Start out with say f5.6 @1/60 10ft away from subject...

Not disagreeing with you, but trying to understand your thinking - why f5.6 as opposed to f4.0 (or bigger, if the aperture goes bigger)?

Also, do you think putting the ISO on manual and bumping it way up might help? Or is the Auto ISO sufficient?

Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography

Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

[wildcard451 0]

Arcticanalog

Anyone have any tricks and tips on how to utilize the stock flash on a canon rebel for night jumps? Settings and everything else?

Thanks dudes!

You could always have them light up like they will be on the ground at night - test shots do wonders for figuring out some settings.

[Superfletch 1]

You'd want the ISO as high as you can stand it. On a Rebel I find that to be 800 or less. Old Rebels like the XT don't even do 800 very well. If you use a larger aperture your DOF is going to be VERY shallow and since your auto focus isn't going to work very well you'll want to manually focus for a set distance and a narrower aperture setting will give you more wiggle room in grabbing an acceptable focus. However, a narrower aperture is going to let in less light as well, so you're going to have to find that happy medium. Take lots of night shots on the ground until you find something that seems acceptable and then just go try it in the air. For "night" shots, I wouldn't use auto anything.

Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher
D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I
Videographer/Photographer

[sinjin 0]

useless, rent a 580 ex II and get it done right.

dont let life pass you by

[BMFin 0]

sinjin

useless, rent a 580 ex II and get it done right.

For the OP:

You dont really need a 580 ex II for shooting at night. Many older strobes will do just fine.

Only time you might need a 580 or similar is if you need to use TTL or fast speed sync etc. You dont need those at what you are doing. Basically you might need highspeed sync only when shooting in daylight and TTL isnt really good in skydiving at all.

You can get used old strobes (flashguns) very cheap. Just make sure it recycles fast enough and has enough power.

Direct flash coming from the direction of the camera always looks a bit amateurish. If you want good results, you need to give the strobe to another jumper and have it coming from different directions. In real life sunlight or artificial light almost always comes from different angle than your eyes. This is what creates shadows and good looking light. Remember photography is all about capturing light.

I suggest you google "strobist" and search the subject. Its going to get a lot of time understanding even the basics, but its well worth it..

[gowlerk 1,903]

The technical aspects of using flash at night are largely irrelevant. Use of flash photography will blind your subjects and is not allowed on any night jumps I've ever seen. It has always been specifically forbidden.

Always remember the brave children who died defending your right to bear arms. Freedom is not free.

[gowlerk 1,903]

Shit, I did not notice that this was posted April1st. Got me.

Always remember the brave children who died defending your right to bear arms. Freedom is not free.

[BMFin 0]

Been done many times.

[gowlerk 1,903]

Yes, I have seen shots looking down at FS flyers, shooting their backs from above. Better be careful when you use that bite switch though.

Always remember the brave children who died defending your right to bear arms. Freedom is not free.