Why so dark?

I took these shots w/ my G6 and the 430 EX last night in M mode, and i have no clue y they came out so dark. I was using the highest exposure setting on the 430 EX, the smallest aperture, one of the faster shutter speeds, and ISO 400. What happened?

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a faster shutter speed results in a darker photo (less light) and ditto with a smaller aperture, (note that a smaller aperture has a higher number, 22 is the smallest aperture). So if you were truly using a small aperture and a fast shutter speed, it's not surprising they're dark, even at ISO 400 with a flash

They're maybe salvageable, there's lots of detail in the dark areas. I copied one and did some quick work on it and it looked OK, I didn't bother posting it because the jpeg artifacts were obvious, but if you started with the original JPG (or better yet, RAW, if you shoot RAW), you could probably push it lighter and get a decent photo out of it (especially if you go black and white/high contrast)

Did you try any in Auto, P, Tv, or Av? How'd they come out? I'm pretty inexperienced, so I usually don't venture into M unless I've found a starting point that works in Tv or Av and want to experiment a bit. Also, when you're shooting M, there's a number in the upper lefthand corner of the vf that tells you how far off the camera THINKS your exposure is. I've found the camera is usually much smarter than I am, and if that's blinking "-3 2/3" under normal circumstances, you can be pretty sure the photo will be *way* dark, you're not gonna want to stray too far from "0"

To help you I think we need a bit more information:

1. How many feet from the subject were you?
2. What aperature did you use?
3. Did you use high speed sync or normal sync?

If you could also post the EXIF for one of the above images it would really help. It look like you used saved for web in PS, because the EXIF is missing.

Ok, i was no more than 10 ft from the subjects, 8.0 aperture, and i was switching between high speed and normal sync speed throughout the day. I'm not exactly sure how i can get the EXIF data though, how can i get that?

In PS, resize one of the straight from the camera images until it is 800 pixels wide, then when you save, reduce the quality until the image size is under 100K.

You answered your own question: I was using the highest exposure setting on the 430 EX, the smallest aperture, one of the faster shutter speeds, and ISO 400.

Slower shutter, wider aperture required.

I'm wondering what sort of light metering you were using?

You're photos are underexposed. Since you are using the 430 EX flash with the G6, I recommend you use TV (shutter-priority) mode set at 1/250 of second and let the flash dictate the proper f/stop. The camera works very well with the flash. Also, since you are using flash, you might want to see if you can use ISO 100 and get a good enough exposure. Then, noise won't be as much of an issue.

I know in your earlier thread, I had suggest using manual exposure to minimize the shutter lag with the camera but, since you're using flash, you need to experiment. First, try to use the camera as I suggested here (TV mode set at 1/250 of second and let the flash set the aperture.)

If you're finding the response too slow, then you can switch to manual mode but you'll have to try to determine the proper f/stop to use. You'll need to take a photo and look at the exposure and see if it needs more light. If so, open up the lens some (i.e. go from f/5.6 to f/4.0.)

Using flash in the manual mode is a little tricky because the proper exposure is going to be determined by the distance from the subject. The proper exposure when a swimmer is 10' away is different than when he is 15' away. That's why the auto setting works better because the camera determines the proper exposure in a split second.

Let me know if you have more questions.

Set the camera to manual mode, shutter of 1/100 (faster if you want to stop the action,) aperture to f/4.0 or 5.6 and ISO 100. If they still come out dark (and that would only be because the flash doesn't have enough power to operate at the distance you are,) then open the aperture to 2.8. Last resort would be to up the ISO because that will cause more noise.

Your ISO was not high enough..even with ISO 800 you will have a hard time. You'll need a shutter of 1/125 and F/1.8 and ISO to get them bright enough. Maybe you might have to move to DSLR or borrow an SLR, put in ISO 800 film and a fast lens

Guys,

Why would you want him to guess the exposures instead of using the TTL metering of the flash/camera combination? My 420 EX works great in auto mode.

mknabster, I still recommend you try the auto mode first. If it doesn't work well, then experiment in manual mode.

If the flash is your primary light source, you aren't guessing exposures -- ETTL will take care of making the proper exposure. Set the camera to any combination of shutter speed and aperture and if you are using an ETTL external flash, they will all come out properly exposed -- 1/30@f/2.0 or 1/250 at f/8.0 will both come out just fine (as long as the flash has enough power that is.) In TTL flash photography *WHEN THE FLASH IS THE PRIMARY LIGHT SOURCE*, the flash duration determines the exposure, not the shutter speed and aperture combination. The shutter speed controls the amount of ambient light that is in the final product and the aperture controls the depth of field, that's it. They have NO effect on exposure.

I stand corrected. I re-read my 420 EX flash manual. I had assumed that taking the camera out of any automatic mode would disable the E-TTL and now see that that's not the case.

Now this is an advice that we certainly don't need here. I imagine the original poster would like to work things out with his G6 before venturing into dSLR's.

mknab, I agree with most of the other posts here, that in low light you do need a wider aperture (lower number) and the slowest speed you can muster. Since the lighting conditions appear dim, I think you can get away with a slower sync speed as long as you use flash. The flash duration is very short, and can freeze action.

So what to do? Experiment. I would first put at at Tv mode, set it at 1/125 shutter speed (assuming that you have it set at hi sync). and let the 420EX do its trick. You can go lower, like 1/60 or 1/30, but you might get some ghosting that may or may not be appealing. This is called 'dragging the shutter', which is using flash at slow speeds. The flash will freeze action, but since the shutter is open longer, light will 'paint in' more of the background.

You can try it next at Av, select the widest opening and fire away. The Canon EX series flashes are pretty much automatic and will give you nice results.

Oh, about your pics, they can still be salvaged. I tried to lighten up one of the photos using the Duplicate layer/Screen Blend Mode trick and it became passable after a few swipes. This method is so easy and it preserves the tonal range without use of Curves in PSCS. If you like I can post the pic. It's a hasty conversion though, and I do believe the results will be better if I had the original file.