Hi, I'm using Canon EOS 90D with EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8. During weekend a took few photos at a wedding using the in-built flashlight. Later when I checked them I found that all of them have shadows at the botton.It seems like this is the shadow from the lens. So I made some test at home. I took few pictures in my room with built-in flashlight, standing near the white wall (camera is set to manual focus since the AF wasn't able to focus). What I'm confused about are the results. When I take a photo without any zoom (17mm) i can see small shadow at the bottom (see the first picture). When I put hood lens (like on that wedding) the shadow is even more noticable (second picture). This seems logical because it makes the 'obstacle' longer. But If i zoom - which makes the lens even longer then there is no shadow at all. Even when the lens is at it's longest position (55mm) still the picture display just while wall. The same happens if I switch the lens to something even bigger (70-200 f/2.8) - no shadows of the lens whatsoever. So basically if i'm using 17-55 at 17mm then the longer the obstacle (by using lens hood) the longer the shadow. But when i zoom or use different lens, the length doesn't matter and the photos look fine. How is this possible? Are there some settings I can use? This is what canon says on their site about the lens (i put the link to the lens above): "Passes distance information to E-TTL II". Could this be the problem? Can this feature be switched off somehow? Thanks 17mm (without zoom) and without lens hood 17mm (without zoom) and with lens hood 55mm (full zoom). The same result is when i use even bigger 70-200 f/2.8
Good Morning Mate, nothing here that is surprising at all. Its not a camera setting you can change. This is simply due to you having a very wide angle shot and trying to light it with a flash that is mounted very very close to the lens so it cant push the light down to the ground where your the wide angle lens is capturing the image, this is why it disappears as you step back and use a longer lens, the hood will definitely make this worse. https://www.kenrockwell.com/canon/lenses/17-55mm.htm 1. no need to use the hood indoors or on a cloudy day, the hood only blocks glare from light being angled into the lens so its mostly for helping with sunlight at angles your hoping to avoid. 2. Pop up flashes suck, they are hard and direct and are not flattering, under-powered and can create situations like this with where it is mounted. A better solution would be an external flash bounced at a wall or ceiling for nice reflected light. https://digital-photography-school.com/bounce-flash-secrets-bouncing-way-better-photography/ 3. Passing the distance info is a feature you want, it lets your ETTL system know how much power you need to send to the flash for the lighting situation given the MM zoom your working with. Without that info you would have exposure issues. Better flashes will even let you manually dial in the zoom on the flash if you want to control that yourself. The big thing here is to get a actual flash head and bounce the light, the 430exii and 580exii models an be bought pretty cheap now that they have been replaced and everything is going to the R series lenses and cameras. The petals here are what you see the larger shadow being cast as the light is blocked from shooting down the floor.
Ok, i didn't realize that it can be the angle that is captured in 17mm. So i need an external flash. I've already read that builtin are not good, always wonder why though. Now i know Thanks
Actually 17mm is the focal length, on a full frame that is approaching a 90 degree angle and on a crop its probably 70 degrees, it is as you notice quite a wide image and you can capture things right in front of the camera. Hence why the shadow becomes more noticeable. . The other problem is also mounted right on the camera body and does not raise up high enough to get out of the way of a very wide lens. The idea of including it was so that you had some extra light if you wanted to take your average snap shot in doors where your probably shooting people and living closer to 50mm. You can see with the yellow lines for flash light i tried to illustrate how its not getting around the lens because its mounted to low. And why the long focal length is not so much of an issue if it is "zoomed" closer to the subject, and why the petal of the hood is an even bigger issue when it is mounted because that makes the lens longer for the flashes light to get blocked and create an even larger shadow. So simple answer don't shoot wide with that pop up. I do fully endorse getting a actually flash, you can buy brand name or third party. I like the color balance of the canon flashes and now that they last generation is replaced by mirror-less technology the prices on secondary are very attractive. Start with one speedlight, get a diffuser and learn to bounce it up or to the side off of walls and let ETTL do the work for you, that link i shared showed how you can get much more flattering light if you don't shoot directly straight on, its just a starting spot as you can get much more creative with light. These speedlights are significantly more powerful with the amount of light they produce (the number signifies power, bigger is better) and versatile since you can angle the heads, or even mount them off camera and trigger wirelessly. Personally I bought 3 580ex2s and wireless triggers so I can essentially set up a complete studio light setup but it is extremely portable. But that's an advance setup, just giving you an idea how this can evolve a bit after you learn some basics.
