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Moments
16th of April 2005 (Sat), 07:54
For those of us that use a 20D with the 550EX Flash. Have you changed your default in the customs functions from evaluative to average?

Do any of you choose one over the other? and why.

I have been having problems with consitancy with the flash exposures at weddings, etc while on evaluative. I have tried average, and do see a difference when I might have an amount of the flash bouncing back into the lens from a reflective subject. An example was one night at an event. My subject s were at a podium making speaches, and behind them, the background were lighted glassbocks. My flash illuminated the subject, but the glassblock also picked up the light and was illuminated more from me. If I move the crop so as not to see the glassblock, my subjects were exposed correctly. If I had the glassblock in the crop, my subject became underexposed. The amount of the glassblock that I was seeing was a slight amount. I quickly switched to the average setting, and that solved the problem. I left the camera on the setting and shot the rest of the job. While doing the candids etc, I had to take down the exposure of the flash by a 1/3 or the shots were hot. Even last night at a sweet16 party I did, I had problems with the flash not being consistant while shooting the candle lighting. Behind the cake was the DJ lighting rig (Silver) and I had a mirrored wall, I did not see any reflections from the flash in the mirror. The turbo battery was fully charged, and the recycle time was not an issue either. The settings were in evaluative and the exposures were all over the place. I now have to adjust each image, and deal with color shifting now.
I'm looking to see what others are using and for what reasons.

Looking foward to responses and opinions.

scottbergerphoto
16th of April 2005 (Sat), 12:19
The usual recommendation is to use Averaging for indoor shots.

tim
16th of April 2005 (Sat), 18:58
Are there any good resources that explain the difference between evaluative and averaging?

robertwgross
17th of April 2005 (Sun), 01:05
The short reference is page 71 in your 20D manual.

---Bob Gross---

tim
17th of April 2005 (Sun), 01:07
I'm looking for a more in depth explaination. Anyone know of one?

scottbergerphoto
17th of April 2005 (Sun), 06:41
There is an explanation in the EOS Flash Sticky:
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=46311&highlight=ettlii

tim
17th of April 2005 (Sun), 14:41
Thanks Scott.