portaflash 336vm - help please

[Hads100]

I set up one flash in my lounge this afternoon, started with my canon 450d in fully automatic just to test the kit out, and the photos came out very over exposed, you could only see the my sons colourful t-shirt and no facial features, what have i done wrong? and how do i set it all up correctly? ( i bought it 2nd hand and seems to have no instruction) thanks in advance

[dmward]

Setting your camera to automatic means it was calculating a shutter speed and aperture to properly expose for the ambient light.

The flash was probably firing at full power. The result is a gross over exposure. As you discovered.

The way to determine a basic exposure for your flash is to put it 10 feet from the subject; set the shutter to its X sync speed and then starting about somewhere around F8 try a test exposure. It its under exposed open up a stop and try again. If is over exposed close down a stop and try again.
When one stop change goes from over to under, or under to over, then try 1/3 stop changes to determine the best exposure at 10 feet subject to flash.

Once you've determined the base exposure you can experiment with closer - farther away etc. to see what happens to exposure.

[DerekW]

Shoot manual, set your shutter to maximum sync speed, somewhere between 1/160 and 1/250 depending on your camera. Set aperture to middle of the road f/5.6-f/11 and set your flash to it's lowest setting. fire away and adjust flash and/or aperture from there.

That'll get you an idea of what's happening from there it's all about learning what to do with it.