Struggle to go manual

[DaVinci]

Hi all

I have always tended to stear clear of manual mode, partly through fear, but mainly because P, Av and Tv have always been perfect for what I need. Now I am starting to get a little more adventurous with my portraiture I want to go the whole hog and master manual mode.

But I seem to have a problem, even though I have got my 580EX II hooked up my camera seems to be metering for massively long exposures at large apetures, as if it is not bothered that the flash is there.

I am probably completely completely wrong but I would have thought that if in P mode the camera meteres for lets say 1/250 shutter and f2.8, if i then dialed these settings in manual mode my image should expose the same as in P mode, but if I do this the meter shows me that the picture will be massivly under exposed.

So my question is, what am I doing wrong?

[ANGUS]

ISO the same in both cases?

[DaVinci]

Exactly the same, ISO100.

[ANGUS]

Hrmm then i can't help sorry.

[troutfisher]

Have a look in the flash section particularly for posts by Curtis N ( Master Flasher).
Stick the camera on M, set the shutter and aperture to expose the background ( if you want) or use say 1/200 at f8 and let the flash sort it out.Make sure the shutter is at or below the sync speed.Use FEC on the flash to adjust the output.

[Dermit]

The meter in the camera in Tv, Av or M modes will always try and set the aperture and shutter to expose properly to the ambient light. It totally ignores the fact that you have a falsh on or not. Ambient light is all the meter can see. This seems like a bad thing at first but it is actually good and is easy to deal with once you realize this is the case. You can go ahead and take the shot and the flash will expose what it can properly even though the meter says it's way under, because the meter has nothing to do with the flash. The flash is its own independant exposure system in ETTL mode.

If you are seeing a meter showing way underexposed at the settings you have that just means that the current ambient light will be that underexposed. Now your flash will become the deciding factor as to what will be exposed properly and when it is in ETTL mode it controls the proper exosure of the subject if it can. It will determine how much power is needed to expose properly but remember that it also is limited in the amount of power it can deliver so you might not be able to expose things too far away, etc. One thing to note, larger aperture will extend the range of the flash. Also, higher ISO settings will extend the range of the flash. Shutter has virtually no effect on the flash at all because the duration of the flash itself is faster than the shutter. Shutter speed will only affect ambient. So while your camera is in manual mode and your flash is in ETTL mode the flash will still expose things according to how it 'reads' the scene and the aperture/ISO will determine how effective the flash can be at distances and help control ambient along with shutter.

If you want to go FULL manual you need to put the flash in manual mode as well. This will cause the flash to deliver precisely the same power everytime it goes. You do this because the flash can be fooled in ETTL just like your meter. When it sees someone wearing black it sends more power than when it sees someone wearing white, even though the same amount of power should be required to expose both properly. As a photographer this is where you would set the FEC to be + or - to compensate. Or if you knew the amount of power required for the distance you were shooting you could simply set the power on the flash in manual and leave it there for shooting the same distance/situation.

By looking at your meter in manual mode and using a flash you can quickly learn how to make the ambient light become more or less a part of the image. We've all seen the shots taken indoors where the flash looks like the only source of light. Very unflaterring and unnatural looking. Very harsh light with harsh shadows and it looks like there were no lights on in the room at all. Bad photographer, bad.

Now, have you ever seen shots taken indoors with flash and the image looks real natural, almost like you remember seeing the scene while you were there? This is because the photographer made sure that the ambient light in the room was a factor in the exposure. How did he do that? By looking at the meter in manual mode and making sure that the settings allowed for the ambient light to become a part of it. This usually means cranking up the ISO and opening up the aperture. And the meter does not need to read dead zero perfect exposure for this to work. Often times I like to underexpose ambient between 1 and 2 stops. This makes the properly exposed subject made by the flash 'pop' from the slightly underexposed background.

The next potential problem is the mixture of color temperture of the light sources. If the subject is mainly lit by flash but the background is lit by incadescent and your white balance is set for flash then the background is going to look warm/yellow. Now this might actually look cool and really work well so you may need to do nothing. But if you want to balance the temps then you need to make them the same. This can be done by adding a color filter to your flash to make it the same color as the ambient and then setting the WB to that color correction. Any standard photography store will carry these filters.

[Pete]

The obvious thing to look at here is the custom function that sets the shutter speed to the sync speed when a flash it attached. This is normally set for people who want to "fire and forget" with the flash attached.

Turning this option off will release the flash (and your shutter speed) giving you far more flexibility.

[DaVinci]

Thanks Dermit, that is the first time anyone has explained that in language I understand!

Would you recomend a Light Meter as an accessory if I want to go full manual for both camera and flash?

[René Damkot]

The obvious thing to look at here is the custom function that sets the shutter speed to the sync speed when a flash it attached. This is normally set for people who want to "fire and forget" with the flash attached.

Turning this option off will release the flash (and your shutter speed) giving you far more flexibility.

This would work in Av mode, and just setting 1/250 (or whatever the sync speed of your camera is) would accomplish exactly the same: Underexposed backgrounds.

IMO it's a completely useless CFn.

M offers way more flexibility, since you can set any shutterspeed you want. Av offers more flexibility, since you can set -EC if you want to underexpose the BG (and raise the shutterspeed).

Use M and set the exposure so that you get a hand holdable shutterspeed (depends on the ambient light on the subject) and get the background illumination you want (depending on the ambient light on the BG).
If your subject is 'silhouetted' against a light BG, you can safely use a longer shutterspeed without motion blur, because the subject doesn't receive any ambient light to cause blurring.... (You can get ghosting though ;))

Would you recomend a Light Meter as an accessory if I want to go full manual for both camera and flash?

Might be useful. Trial and error works as well, since your in camera light meter will meter the ambient, so all you need to 'trail and error' is the flash power...

[Pete]

I agree with Rene.

I took these in manual mode. The ETTL flash is good enough to do the bulk of the work for you.

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=369787

[DaVinci]

(You can get ghosting though )

Ok, whats ghosting?

[Pete]

Ok, whats ghosting?

Where something moves fast enough for the slow shutter speed to pic up (the flash doesn't quite freeze all motion, some motion from the ambient exposure comes though.

A classic example is this one (look at the ghosting on my mother-in-law's finger).

http://www.the-aperture.com/EE/photos/normal/20071228_IMG_1510_Edit.jpg

[DaVinci]

This is starting to make sense now.

I must admit its a little more complex than I first thought, but I'm starting to get my head around it now. That said would 2nd curtain sync have the same effect?

So for portraits with a back light (and by back light i mean a 430ex running as a slave) is it still just trial and error?

[cosworth]

Meter twice, shoot once. ETTL can take the guess work out of it but if photography was not trial and error, we'd all be top notch pros.

Shoot, shoot and then shoot some more. You'll get the hang of it.

[Pete]

Once you get over the hurdle, you'll find that it's actually very very simple. Just start playing with it and it'll start coming together.

[Dermit]

I do not use a meter, never have. With digital you can zero in pretty good with the display, histogram and a little common sense. I also use a photovision target when I really want to zero in on exposure and white balance more accurately. ( http://www.photovisionvideo.com/target.html )

Just remember, the camera is going to look at the scene and the meter is going to tell you what it thinks is proper for ambient light regardless of flash being on/present or not. Then the flash will look at your aperture/ISO settings and when you press the shutter (in ETTL mode) it will send out an, undetectable by the human eye, pre-flash to gather information about how much gets reflected back and figure out how much power to deliver during the actual exposure. Since the one setting that is NOT shared by the flash and the camera is shutter you can mess with the shutter to do some creative things, such as under or over exposing the parts of the scene that will not get painted with the light of your flash. This is an INCREDIBLE option that not many see as a factor in the creative parts of photography.

For example, I do this often, I shoot on location 95% of the time. Weddings, family portraits, senior pictures, etc. Often times clients show up wearing something that contrasts harshly with the background. This is typically not a good thing because if the clothing and background do not contrast then that means that the face will contrast, the part you want the eye drawn to in an image. So if a client shows up wearing a very light color, or white, and the natural background is dark then the eye will naturally be drawn to the clothing first but if I set the subject in a location darker than the background, shade, etc. and use flash to expose the subject proper and set my shutter such that it overexposes the background I can bring the background tonality up closer to the tonality of the clothing and therefore contrast the face with both and draw the eye to where it should go, the face. Conversely I can underexpose the background if they are wearing dark clothes and the background is light. You can better control all this by placing the light source, flashes, closer or furhter to the subject to allow for tighter or larger apertures which in turn will aid in under or over exposing.

Keep in mind though that as a general discussion this works buts in real life every situation is different and it may not work well enough to have it look decent. You simple need to know how to work with what you are given.