High ISO shooting with Canon 5D mk2, on the limits.

It's not often I am hovering on the comfortable limits with a Canon 5D mk2, at the weekend I was in real mixed low light soup.

Ambient light trickled into the scene carrying with it a red gel effect, mixed with this delight was a tungsten and a flash combo as required, yep this was a real yummy mix.

To capture the ambient dragging the shutter was order of the day. Shutter speeds on this occasion were as low as I generally go with a few shots at 1/4 sec and 1/6 sec hand held, burst shooting was the most sensible option as the miss rate did have the potential to be quite high.

Nothing is a given, and at times even experienced photographers will get thrown for a few frames, light can play some crazy tricks on you.

What the eye see's and the camera produces isn't always similar.

Using the high ISO setting camera side the recycle rate on the small flash was pretty much instant, the Canon 580EX II flash was not having to work too hard as I was shooting a wide aperture high ISO combo.

Protecting the delicate ambient that came from various sources was important, over powering this with flash produces images for me that are less interesting, so proximity to the subject was important.

Back to this low light soup shoot, knowing the best places to work were key to keeping control on the main subject, in terms of exposure and colour casts.

The battery's used in the Canon flash for this job were rechargeable Duracell, they haven't let me down on a shoot yet.