Fill Flash

Lisa, sorry for the highjack

Dave and Jim, I have been using spot metering on my 5D. Bryan Peterson suggests picking one mode and staying with it in his book Understanding Exposure. He also suggests evaluative. What meter mode do you guys use? Do you stick with just one?

Dave, I'm glad I got it across that time, it was not my intention to argue and you did make valid points, I just had a bad day and maybe took your response as being the right answer while all those suggesting any kind of automatic answer were wrong. Apologize if anything I said was taken the wrong way.

Lisa, I hope that in all of that you actually took out some useful information. Please post a photo or two so we can be more helpful in getting you your answers.

drparker, I normally use evaluative for any auto mode at all. I never shoot in Program mode, but do use both Av and Tv fairly regularly along with manual in tricky situations.

So for any of the auto modes I use evaluative becauase I find it to be the most accurate to get a general exposure for the overall scene. You dont want to use spot for any auto mode because it will drastically change the exposure based on what the spot is lying on. If its a black suit or car, you are going to get heavy overexposure, if its on a white dress or bright sky, you are going to get bad underexposure.

When I shoot manual, I normally use spot metering because when shooting manual I am after full control over the scene and want to get a very precise measurement off of something that I know the reflective light characteristics of. Sometimes I'll use evaluative in manual, but it just depends on the scene.

No worries, hijack away, it all helps for my learning.

It was actually a wedding that I did, i was told to use fill flash outside in sunshine as it brightens up the face and gets rid of the shadows but all I managed to do was ruin the photo completely and over expose it to where its not recoverable.

I definatley have some learning on the fill flash side, am going to print this thread off and have a practice this weekend.

Thanks for all the help everyone.

Can you show us the photo Lisa? That would help a lot and would get rid of the speculation on our side of things.

If you cant show the photo, what settings were you using, what aperture, what shutter, what shooting mode (manual, Av, etc), what was the flash set to, how bright was it out?

All those things will help us figure out your problem and there might be a really simple answer for you.

Lisa,

I think the challenges of outdoor fill flash have been explained, so I won't go into it too deeply. The key is paying attention to the numbers in your viewfinder. The camera actually does try to tell you when you're about to make a mistake.

If you're outdoors with the flash on in Av mode, and you look through the viewfinder and half-press the shutter button, you need to look at the shutter speed indication. If it's blinking 250 (or 200 depending on the camera's sync speed), it's telling you that you are about to overexpose the image with ambient light.

At that point, you have at least three options:
1) Stop down the aperture until the shutter speed is no longer blinking
2) Switch to Tv mode at 1/250 (or 1/200) and let the camera pick the aperture
3) Enable high speed sync on your flash.

Edit: 4) Enable custom function 16 (safety shift) if your camera has it. The camera will basically revert to #2 above.

Right then Lisa, I trust you are ready to answer questions now!!!

Fureinku wrote in post #2096095
with fill flash, dont you also meter for the brightest part in your scene? like the sky? and use FEC?

My opinion differs from PhotoGuys, and agrees with Forkballs. Sometimes the sky is important (not the 'most important' but important nonetheless. So in those circumstances I might expose to capture the sky in more brilliant color, and let the flash take care of lighting my subject. In that setting 'fill' becomes what I do to the subject so that it is exposed, but the balance of the fill area vs. the sky is determined by the metering of the sky and setting my exposure accordingly.

To answer the question about metering. I generally shoot Manual mode, probably 95% of the time, with AV the other 5%. Metering depends on what I'm shooting. I only really trade between spot and EV. Much of the time, I'll actually use my handheld light meter if I think it's gonna be tricky or I'm shooting from the shade into the sun or bright areas.

VWPILOT, I took no offense. Either I was having a bad reading day or I was just being dull. It took me re-reading your posts to get what you were saying. It's clear to me now though.

I second Lisa posting a picture!

Curtis N wrote in post #2116097
Lisa,

I think the challenges of outdoor fill flash have been explained, so I won't go into it too deeply. The key is paying attention to the numbers in your viewfinder. The camera actually does try to tell you when you're about to make a mistake.

If you're outdoors with the flash on in Av mode, and you look through the viewfinder and half-press the shutter button, you need to look at the shutter speed indication. If it's blinking 250 (or 200 depending on the camera's sync speed), it's telling you that you are about to overexpose the image with ambient light.

At that point, you have at least three options:
1) Stop down the aperture until the shutter speed is no longer blinking
2) Switch to Tv mode at 1/250 (or 1/200) and let the camera pick the aperture
3) Enable high speed sync on your flash.

Edit: 4) Enable custom function 16 (safety shift) if your camera has it. The camera will basically revert to #2 above.

My flash syncs at 60 and 200. So by all rights, I could be able to use evaluative mode, Tv at 200 and achieve the same results with no regard to DOF? How would a ND filter factor into the equation?

gcobb wrote in post #2155862
My flash syncs at 60 and 200.

If it will sync at 1/200, it will also sync at any speed slower than that. 1/60 is the speed it uses in P mode but no one knows why.

Yes. And this will give you the widest aperture possible for proper ambient exposure (if 1/200 is your camera's max. sync speed), therefore maximizing your flash range and minimizing DOF.

It would allow a larger aperture for les DOF. Flash range would remain unchanged because the effect of the filter and the larger aperture cancel each other out. E-TTL metering should work fine and no adjustment of FEC should be necessary.

In theory.

Edit: Keep in mind that a ND filter will make the viewfinder darker and may negatively affect the autofocus speed and accuracy, depending on how much light you have to start. This shouldn't be a problem in full sun, though.

Great thread, lots of useful information!

Thanks, yeah I am going to have to play more and make note of what works. I have a beach wedding early next year and I don't want to have any doubt about what I'm working with. There is good information in this thread!

Either a great thread, or a totally confusing one with lots of contradictory information!

simatbirch wrote in post #2166731
Either a great thread, or a totally confusing one with lots of contradictory information!

Tell us what you're confused about, and perhaps we can at least clarify whether it's a matter of fact, personal opinion, or personal preference.

Lisa1976 wrote in post #2095777
I am still really struggling with this. I just cant get it right, my pictures still come out well over exposed.

Can someone give me some tips with this as my practising just isn't getting me anywhere.

Thanks
Lisa

Looking back over this thread, which has taken a few branches and some of the branches have sparked debate about whether or not certain branch statements were true or not, I'm not sure if the OP was addressed about root cause of the problem of overexposure. Coming back to the OP, I'd like to offer the following explanation for the original problem...

Outside in bright light (sunny), with ISO100 on the camera you need to use 1/100 f/16 (Sunny 16 rule of thumb) or some permutation of that EV (e.g. 1/200 f/11; or 1/400 f/8; or 1/800 f/5.6, etc.) for proper expsosure under that light level (sun).

When you activate the flash without HSS capability enabled, the camera knows that it must select 1/250 or slower (depending upon model of camera) in order to synchronize with the flash properly.

So assuming that you had the camera set to Av mode and had f/5.6 set on the camera for DOF control and the flash off, the camera would have chosen 1/800. But then you activated the flash for fill reasons, the camera shifted itself to 1/250 to synch with the flash, but the Av mode had a lens aperture set to f/5.6, and that combination permits 2EV too much light to strike the sensor compared to the proper exposure.

As was posted, keep an eye on the camera settings before and after you activate the fill light, to make sure the use of flash is not creating a problem for yourself. An if you have the option to enable HSS (in-camera flash does not) try to activate that mode to see if it permits you to use flash adequately even in the bright light conditions. (Because HSS greatly diminishes the intensity of the light output by the flash so that a higher shutter speed can be used, you might not get enough flash range in HSS mode!)