Balancing Ambient & Flash

[mike weeks]

Casually browsing the specs of the Sekonic 478 I saw I feature I had not realised was there. If you meter in cordless mode it will indicate how much of the scene is lit by Ambient and how much by the Flash. I know that the experienced users will state that you should not rely on the ratios but instead light for how you want the final result but as a learning tool it could be very good. The result is giving in percentages and whilst researching I found that I also have it on my 358. So here is a rough calculation;

0% means all light is from ambient
10% is a ratio of 1 to 9 or approx 3 1/3 stops lower than ambient
20% is a ratio of 1 to 4 or 2 stops lower than ambient
30% is a ratio of approx 1 to 2 or approx 1 1/3 stops lower
40% is a ratio of 3 to 2 or approx 2/3 stops lower
50% is a ratio of 1 to1 i.e. flash and ambient the same
60% is a ratio of 2 to 3 or approx 2/3 stops higher than ambient
70% is a ratio of approx 2 to 1 or approx 1 1/3 stops higher
80% is a ratio of 4 to 1 or 2 stops higher than ambient
90% is a ratio of 9 to 1 or approx 3 1/3 stops higher than ambient
100% means that light is all flash

Mike

 

[Phil V]

Interesting Mike (purely academic as I have a Minolta meter).

I'm looking to work out a reliable measure of hyper sync flash power, clearly the traditional method is trial and error until 'I can estimate'. But something I could hold would be better. (May end up with a cheat sheet on my phone)

 

[mike weeks]

Interesting Mike (purely academic as I have a Minolta meter). clearly the traditional method is trial and error until 'I can estimate'.

That does appear to be the answer for hypersync, long tail sync etc.

For me it was, wow what a great feature, good grounds for an upgrade and then the realisation that I already had it

Mike