Tired of flash hit and miss! (please help)

rabidcow wrote in post #5580672
Sounds weird to meter at ISO400 at f/11 and shoot at ISO200 f/9.....right?

Metering this way gives me nice easy numbers to meter to, and then I am basically shooting 1/3 under at a cleaner ISO in order to avoid any blowout on shiny foreheads or blond hair.

Wouldn't metering at f/11 and shooting at f/9 actually over expose by 1/3 since your aperture is open larger than needed?

Or keep the flash on ETTL and do a "pre-flash" on each person before firing the exposure flash..put your middle focus point on their faces and hit the * button on your camera and it will fire a test flash at your subject reading the light hitting the focusing point on their face thus giving the exposure flash a perfect burst of light each time..that is what I do for consistency. I ALWAYS fire the test "pre-flash", even when using the pocket bouncer..of course you can't do it in a fast paced wedding but on posed shots or candids I always do it. Do that and you will not need any FEC.

swampler wrote in post #5580778
Wouldn't metering at f/11 and shooting at f/9 actually over expose by 1/3 since your aperture is open larger than needed?

Actually f/11 to f/9 is 2/3 of a stop, but remember, I am shooting at ISO200, not the ISO400 that I metered for. This puts me at 1/3 under.

Shooting wrote in post #5581151
Or keep the flash on ETTL and do a "pre-flash" on each person before firing the exposure flash..put your middle focus point on their faces and hit the * button on your camera and it will fire a test flash at your subject reading the light hitting the focusing point on their face thus giving the exposure flash a perfect burst of light each time..that is what I do for consistency. I ALWAYS fire the test "pre-flash", even when using the pocket bouncer..of course you can't do it in a fast paced wedding but on posed shots or candids I always do it. Do that and you will not need any FEC.

I am using mono lights and a control box. There is no ETTL, I need to meter with a hand-held.

rabidcow wrote in post #5581205
Actually f/11 to f/9 is 2/3 of a stop, but remember, I am shooting at ISO200, not the ISO400 that I metered for. This puts me at 1/3 under.

Ahh, thanks. I missed that. I'm still trying to learn this lighting stuff...

For times where I don't have a pre-made bounce card with me a piece of white printer paper folded in a triangle shape would pretty good too.

rabidcow wrote in post #5580672
For senior Yearbooks I use a 4 light set up. Main, fill, hair, and background. Main is modified with a HALO for REALLY soft shadows, and setup at subject forehead height and 45(ish) degrees off centerline (the line from background center to background light to subject center and then to camera center) This produces a nice 10 or 2 o'clock catchlight. Fill is placed centerline about 14 feet from subject with a 42" umbrella. Hair and background lights are in the usual places.

Lighting is at a 3:1 ratio. Fill metered at 5.6.5, fill-main combined at 11. Hair at 8.5 and background at 11 (metered at ISO400).

Camera settings...ISO200, 1/125, f/9, flash white balance. Sounds weird to meter at ISO400 at f/11 and shoot at ISO200 f/9.....right?

Metering this way gives me nice easy numbers to meter to, and then I am basically shooting 1/3 under at a cleaner ISO in order to avoid any blowout on shiny foreheads or blond hair.

Thanks for the (detailed) info. The trouble with learning this lighting business is...everyone does their lighting a bit differently. It can be a bit confusing.

Thats an interesting technique of metering. I would have thought it was easier to just simply meter the flash to ISO200 and f/8 and then close down to f/9 for the shot

Shooting wrote in post #5581151
Or keep the flash on ETTL and do a "pre-flash" on each person before firing the exposure flash..put your middle focus point on their faces and hit the * button on your camera and it will fire a test flash at your subject reading the light hitting the focusing point on their face thus giving the exposure flash a perfect burst of light each time..that is what I do for consistency. I ALWAYS fire the test "pre-flash", even when using the pocket bouncer..of course you can't do it in a fast paced wedding but on posed shots or candids I always do it. Do that and you will not need any FEC.

When you talk about pressing the * button, are you talking about taking a Flash Exposure Lock "preflash"? Does FEL work on an off-camera flash setup? <must study camera manual again>

rabidcow wrote in post #5580672
For senior Yearbooks I use a 4 light set up. Main, fill, hair, and background. Main is modified with a HALO for REALLY soft shadows, and setup at subject forehead height and 45(ish) degrees off centerline (the line from background center to background light to subject center and then to camera center) This produces a nice 10 or 2 o'clock catchlight. Fill is placed centerline about 14 feet from subject with a 42" umbrella. Hair and background lights are in the usual places.

Lighting is at a 3:1 ratio. Fill metered at 5.6.5, fill-main combined at 11. Hair at 8.5 and background at 11 (metered at ISO400).

Camera settings...ISO200, 1/125, f/9, flash white balance. Sounds weird to meter at ISO400 at f/11 and shoot at ISO200 f/9.....right?

Metering this way gives me nice easy numbers to meter to, and then I am basically shooting 1/3 under at a cleaner ISO in order to avoid any blowout on shiny foreheads or blond hair.

Excellent setup, and easy to replicate. I've done it this way with slightly different lighting ratios (a bit darker background, for instance) and different light modifiers, but overall this is a terrific starting point for people to try. The only problem is not everybody has 4 lights to try with Thanks for sharing in so much detail.