Need help with fll flash... Quickly if possible:)

I appologize for not doing a search. I am out camping and using my mobile phone. Thus my Internet spear is REALLY slow making searches near impossible.

It is really sunny here and the light is fairly harsh, so I figured it would be the perfect time to use fill flash. I stuck my 580exii on my 1d3 with my 135L, switched it to Av mode and figures all would be well. I quickly figured out that it is not that simple LOL.

So, can someone give me a crash course or a link or two to a crash course on how to use fill flash? I would really appreciate it.

Sorry if there are typos and grammer errors. My phone auto fills words and I don't always catch it if it gets something wrong.

Play with the FEC, otherwise you're doing it right. It's pretty much automatic. If you're having problems describe them if you can't post a pic.

dial down ettl "-1" or so.

Thanks for the advice. From the preview screen it does not appear that any filling of the shadows is taking place. Which direction should I adjust the FEC? Should the EC (not FEC) be set at zero? Normally I set the EC at +1/3. The FEC is currenty set at zero. Thanks!

FEC on the flash at about -2 should do the trick.

Set the FEC to 1 and see what happens. Then set it to 2. Trial and error is your friend.

I tried -1 and -2 on the FEC. Av exposure, ISO 100, 1/4000, EC 0, camera and flash in evaluative. Niether FEC setting had any noticeable effect. Am I doing something wrong? Could the light be just too harsh for the flash to fill in?

Any faster than 1/250th your flash is in FP mode - which means the power is reduced a lot. At 1/4000th there's hardly any light from the flash getting to the subject. Try and get your shutter to slow down a bit, the flash only works at full power if you're at 1/250th or slower. You might be at F32 to get that in bright weather, or it might not be possible. I suspect with even a shutter that's a bit slower things will work better. Also try putting your FEC to 2 like I suggested.

What aperture and what subject distance? High speed synch really cuts your flash range and if you are shooting ISO100 and stopped down very much you won't be able to fill shadows that are far away.

Flash does not care how bright the ambient is, only ISO and aperture.

580EX range at ISO100 in HSS (roughly) when zoomed all the way out.
f/2 = 52 feet.
f/4 = 26 feet.
f/8 = 13 feet.
f/11 = 9 feet.

safehaven wrote in post #6109445
I tried -1 and -2 on the FEC. Av exposure, ISO 100, 1/4000, EC 0, camera and flash in evaluative.

Your sync speed is 1/250 ... are you using HSS?

Set manual exposure for the background -- ISO 100; 1/250; set aperture appropriately -- let the flash do the rest.

What exactly are you taking photos of?

Gatorboy wrote in post #6109531
What exactly are you taking photos of?

The surface of the sun, judging by his exposure settings!

I haven't seen anything that indicates the OP is using HSS. At least, I don't think this is set automatically with his combination of camera and flash. I could be wrong. However, if he isn't using HSS, then there would only be a sliver of flash along one edge and no fill whatsoever in the rest of the frame. In bright light, you can use Tv rather than AV and set the the shutter speed at 1/250. If the flash is on ETTL, everything else should pretty well take care of itself.

Jim M wrote in post #6110440
I haven't seen anything that indicates the OP is using HSS. At least, I don't think this is set automatically with his combination of camera and flash. I could be wrong. However, if he isn't using HSS, then there would only be a sliver of flash along one edge and no fill whatsoever in the rest of the frame. In bright light, you can use Tv rather than AV and set the the shutter speed at 1/250. If the flash is on ETTL, everything else should pretty well take care of itself.

If you don't enable HSS then the camera is locked to a maximum of the sync speed, 1/250th. Since he's using 1/4000th either the flash is turned off or HSS is turned on.

Following the sunny 16 rule I would guess he is shooting in the f2.8 range. Not gonna be possible to do much with flash at those settings in that light.

I would go Manual and underexpose ambient by a half stop or so and let ETTL do its thing.

Try f11. If you want to blur your background gotta wait till the sun goes down.

For fill flash you usually expose the image properly rather than half a stop under, and use the flash to light the shadows. If you add half a stop with the flash the images will probably look a little flatter, but I doubt there'd be a huge difference. Try it and see!