How do i...

[Roy G. Biv]

How do use Av mode and flash together? When doing so, the camera adjusts the shutter speed to as if there was no flash. A fake example.. Taking a pic at 1.8, the camera will wait 1/5 of a sec then fire the flash instead of using 1/60 with flash as if in P mode. Thanks.

[egordon99]

Quick answer - The camera sets the shutter speed based on the ambient light ONLY so it does not matter if flash is raised/powerd on, you'd get 1/5s. As for the flash firing AFTER 1/5s, you have Rear-curtain sync enabled.
Slightly longer answer - Use Av mode when you are shooting outside and want to use flash as fill.
A little longer still - Inside with flash as your main source of illumination, use M mode.

[egordon99]

LONG answer - Just replace P-TTL with E-TTL and 1/180s with the native x-sync speed of your camera body (I originally wrote this on a Pentax forum)

Basically, with flash, the FLASH exposure is solely determined by flash power (actually duration, how long the bulb is actually firing for), aperture and ISO. Ambient exposure is determined by ISO, shutter speed, and aperture (just like without any flash), so the trick is balancing the two. If I'm indoors in a smallish room (such as in someone's house), I usually just forget about ambient since the flash is powerful enough to light up the entire room (hence the 1/180s below, if the flash didn't fire, I'd have a more or less black picture) Now although you're shooting MANUAL Mode, that's only for the ambient exposure (the exposure needle in the viewfinder will blink warning you about underexposure, but ignore that). The camera's P-TTL metering will determine the needed flash output for a proper exposure.

Here's something I wrote on another forum -
"Easy" recipe for great P-TTL flash shots -
1)Point flash at ceiling
2)Put camera in MANUAL mode on the mode dial
3)Set FEC to +1 on the flash head

4)Shoot RAW (this allows you to recover some highlights that might get blown as a result of #3 above)

5)Set ISO to 200 (to start)
6)Set shutter speed to 1/180s
7)Set f-stop to whatever DOF you want


Now if the flash runs out of "power" because of high ceilings, you can raise the ISO or open up the f-stop to compensate. Or you can slow down the shutter to bring more ambient light into the exposure (in addition to adjusting ISO/f-stop) If the ceiling is REALLY high (like in a church), you may need a reflector to throw some of the light forward (I use the Joe Demb Flip-it).

[egordon99]

Quick and dirty outdoor fill flash tutorial -
Basically, if your subject is in shade and the background is bright (ie under a tree) or majorly backlit, fill flash is your friend. Think of those times when you got a properly exposed background, but the subject was almost pitch black.

Put camera into Av mode, metering will set the shutter speed to expose the overall shot (which in the situations that call for fill-flash will generally be the background) based on your selected aperture/ISO.
Make sure flash is set to HSS (in case your shutter speed go faster than 1/180s) and P-TTL. Fire away! The shutter speed/f-stop/ISO will expose the background, and the flash should output enough power to light up the foreground.

Now to control the background exposure, you use exposure compensation on the camera body (which would adjust the shutter speed), to adjust how much fill for the flash exposure, you use Flash exposure compensation. The trick is balancing the two (as it is with indoor work), and that comes with experience/experimentation.

[beano]

egordon99, great tutorials mate. I'm just looking at buying my first flash, so thanks a lot for all the pointers. ;)

[Roy G. Biv]

Great answers.. I give them a shot, Thanks.