To ETTL or not to ETTL, that is the question...

DHPHOTO66 wrote in post #13893567
ETTL is not being "FOOLED" its doing its job. It was desigmed to compesate for changing lighting situations. I am sure Joe McNally would disagree with all the people who says that ETTL is not good for portrait work. If you understand how it works you can quickly predicts how it will react and adjust. The same happens with manual, if your subject happens to move closer to or farther from the light source it over/under exposes, you would open or close the aperture, correct?

Even Joe McNally knows when to turn those flashes to manual mode

Manual, when you can; ETTL Evaluative when you must.

I have never had good (consistent) results with ETTL. I always equate it as the "papparazzi" mode, you only use it when you are running and gunning and moving and have zero time to setup the shot - like a papparazzi does when trying to capture celebrities walking out of a restaurant.

I prefer manual 99% of the time. I like having complete control. I have learned to be able to make very quick adjustments in manual mode.

Maybe I need to learn and use ETTL more, but I gave up using it when I have hired models and I am not in a rush to capture.

Thanks for all the responses! I guess if both the Kings and Strato II triggers are comparable in terms of quality and reliability, then for the $30 more it is probably worth having both ETTL and manual controls at my disposal.

What Wilt posted, as usual, was spot on.

DHPHOTO66 wrote in post #13893970
Wilt...what exactly are you trying to say? I see 18 shot that are not extremely under / over exposed, they al look acceptable to me...maybe its my monitor.

Acceptable to you is not to me.

DHPHOTO66 wrote in post #13893719
If you agree then you must agree with flash to subject distance in manual , and that ETTL is only doing what it was made to do by adjusting exposure for non-static subjects.

Consistancy

dan.k78 wrote in post #13894808
Thanks for all the responses! I guess if both the Kings and Strato II triggers are comparable in terms of quality and reliability, then for the $30 more it is probably worth having both ETTL and manual controls at my disposal.

Lighting will start to nickle and dime you.

If you wind up taking lighting seriously enough to get into portrait, glamour, beauty, and product work, you will be shooting in manual and metering with studio or portable studio lighting. It is the de rigeur. I believe the earlier one learns how to shoot with manual camera and flash exposure, the better they understand the control needed to get quality images. I also believe simple is better. Best to get real good with one light, a modifier or two and a reflector. But that's me, I've bought and used more lights and doodads than you can imagine.

DHPHOTO66 wrote in post #13893567
ETTL is not being "FOOLED" its doing its job. It was desigmed to compesate for changing lighting situations. I am sure Joe McNally would disagree with all the people who says that ETTL is not good for portrait work. If you understand how it works you can quickly predicts how it will react and adjust. The same happens with manual, if your subject happens to move closer to or farther from the light source it over/under exposes, you would open or close the aperture, correct?

I can see you can read, but not understand. A few inches of movement shouldnt drastically change the power setting of a scene, but the constant re-calculating of exposure for each shot destroys consistency. Using your suggested method I would need to dial in exposure compensation to fix the ETTL. Or I could simply get it right in manual and it stays where it should.

DHPHOTO66 wrote in post #13893970
Wilt...what exactly are you trying to say? I see 18 shot that are not extremely under / over exposed, they al look acceptable to me...maybe its my monitor.

18 shots presented, three of them horridly overexposed simply when the camera-to-flash ETTL connections in the hotshoe inexplicably was interrupted (with a still camera mounted to a tripod...where is the 'flex' in the hotshoe connection coming from?!?!?), and another shot with less exposure than the others...4 out of 18 shots which were NOT consistent in exposure -- too high of an error rate!

DHPHOTO66 wrote in post #13893437
If you have the Stratos IIs why not get the Odin, and you can still use the Receivers, why buy a totally different system? This is what I meant by my post, we often buy what we need at the moment and dont think o the possibility of future ventures. There is nothing wrong with buying a system capable of TTL and Manual, you can always turn it off. In the end up spending more....

I can't afford the full Odin system haha. Also, I don't know that the Odin will send the ETTL info through the Stratos receivers to the flashes. And as a college student, buying for the moment is all I can manage I do agree though, if I could have gone for ETTL capable triggers right off the bat, I would have.

Here is my own tests...canon 20D 85mm, tripod, cable rease, phottix odin, 420ex. Top 6 photos photos manual 1/32 power f5.0. second 6 ETTL direct flash f5.0, last 6 ETTL bounce all zoomed to 50mm, shot in JPEG, just cropped in CS2, no processing. When I look at the histogrags they are very consistant. I am not sure what system Wilt is using, but maybe it needs servicing.

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Well, if that consistency is your standard, go for it.

windpig wrote in post #13896738
Well, if that consistency is your standard, go for it.

You dont think so?...Show me where shot to shot there is a difference in the sets...look up the definition of CONSISTENT, its not a positive or negative its being the same across the board...I am not democtrating exposure, just the fact that all the shots are the same in each set from pic 1-6 in each instance. Not what Wilt showed in his test, which did show inconsitecy. Maybe its ME, and in my original post, "Its better tho have and not need than to need and not have."

DHPHOTO66 wrote in post #13896702
Here is my own tests...canon 20D 85mm, tripod, cable rease, phottix odin, 420ex. Top 6 photos photos manual 1/32 power f5.0. second 6 ETTL direct flash f5.0, last 6 ETTL bounce all zoomed to 50mm, shot in JPEG, just cropped in CS2, no processing. When I look at the histogrags they are very consistant. I am not sure what system Wilt is using, but maybe it needs servicing.

I just took your posted photo (18 shots) and used the eyedropper tool to sample in the same (approximated) position within the frame, sampled the gray background. What I found was

Photos 1-3 had RGB values about 173
Photos 4-6 had RGB values about 176

Photos 7, 9 had RGB values about 139
Photos 8, 10, 11 had RGB values about 137
Photo 12 had RGB value about 135

Photos 13-15 had R value about 113
Photos 16-18 had R value about 120

The spread on manual flash was 3 points, two values.
The spread on ETTL forward flash was 4 points, three values.
The spread on ETTL bounce was 7 points, two values.

Manual is not absolutely unchanging, but it does exhibit less variability than the ETTL.

DHPHOTO66 wrote in post #13896702
Here is my own tests...canon 20D 85mm, tripod, cable rease, phottix odin, 420ex. Top 6 photos photos manual 1/32 power f5.0. second 6 ETTL direct flash f5.0, last 6 ETTL bounce all zoomed to 50mm, shot in JPEG, just cropped in CS2, no processing. When I look at the histogrags they are very consistant. I am not sure what system Wilt is using, but maybe it needs servicing.

Sure with the camera locked onto a tripod and the subject not moving you would expect ettl to offer some consistency. Try that same experiment with a subject with more white and dark values and where the subject moves around the metering pattern a bit more. The consistency that most of us are speaking of is creating a scene, particularly for a portrait, and wherein the subject has some freedom to change poses without it changing the exposure just because more white or dark falls within the metering pattern.

Thanks Wilt, but is that really visible to the naked eye, would it be hard to adjust in post if I needed? Like anything else, what are the standard variances we accept? Once again thanks for posting that tech info. I can see you and I will be have some wonderful discussions in the future, u seem to be a good guy....
I looks like your system has a disconect, maybe its the hotshoe, I had another 20D body that did that full maual thing every few shots, the hotshoe connect was broken bearly moved, but when it did it was blow out city...lol

gonzogolf wrote in post #13896984
Sure with the camera locked onto a tripod and the subject not moving you would expect ettl to offer some consistency. Try that same experiment with a subject with more white and dark values and where they subject moves around the metering pattern a bit more. The consistency that most of us are speaking of is creating a scene, particularly for a portrait, and wherein the subject has some freedom to change poses without it changing the exposure just because more white or dark falls within the metering pattern.

This was a responce to Wilt"s post with the pics, his setup was with a tripod as well....