White Balance Flash Mode

I've been reading in various threads and forums that most people use AV ,TV or M mode when using flash. On the TXI there is a flash mode as part of the white balance section. When is this used and how does it differ from the other modes? Thanks for your help.

The AV, TV, and M modes establish how the aperture and shutter speed work to give a proper exposure or, to say it another way, determine the amount of light that hits the sensor. The white balance section determines how the sensor interprets the color of the light that hits it. Most flash is very close to the color of daylight, but there can be some subtle differences. Sometimes flash is just a tiny bit more blue than sunlight. Other kinds of light are dramatically different from sunlight or daylight, as it is often called. Incandescent light bulbs are more yellow or orange than daylight. Fluorescent lights are usually much greener than daylight. Being in the shade of a building where the light is actually spill from the blue sky, is bluer than full sun. So the white balance adjusts the what the sensor is supposed to see as pure white or pure gray rather than having some degree of color tint.

I hope this helps.

Yes Jim this does help but I would still like to know when we use the flash mode that is found in the white balance section since in most post people talk about shooting flash in the AV ,TV or M mode. Thanks for your response.

It depends somewhat on your equipment.

If you have one of the current Canon EX Speedlites and one of the relatively recent DSLRs, AWB or Flash WB will use info from the flash to set the white balance for each shot (since the color temp varies slightly according to how much flash power is used). I believe it only works this way when the flash head is pointed straight forward since bouncing flash will result in different color tints.

Otherwise, Flash WB setting simply uses a color temp designed to approximate the color temp of the flash (similar to the other white balance presets like sun, shade, tungsten, etc.).

This is completely unrelated to exposure modes such as Av, Tv or M.

cappy1927 wrote in post #4348664
Yes Jim this does help but I would still like to know when we use the flash mode that is found in the white balance section since in most post people talk about shooting flash in the AV ,TV or M mode. Thanks for your response.

AV, TV, and M modes have nothing whatsoever to do with the white balance flash mode. White balance is just another way of saying that you are adjusting for the color of the light. If you want to use the flash mode in the white balance section, then do it when flash is the only significant contribution to the light in the picture.