Fill flash advice

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cargo

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Gary
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Hi all.
I am guessing this will be a basic question for you all but here goes.
I took a few images yesterday at a parade, I saw the press or professional photographer taking is shots all with is huge telephoto lens and speedlight "hotshoe mounted with the plastic diffuser on" he had the flash ponited up into the air "eg not straight at his subject.A lot of these images he was a fare old distance from his subjects.
Anyway to get to the point, I thought I will try using my pop up flash for fill.I shoot in AV so I poped the flash.
My subjects were close around 4 to 5ft away.
When I have looked at them at home on the pc they do seem to be overexposed.
I shot in raw so could sort this but I am just wondering why the camera did not sort the fill out correctly, on one shot I dialled in -1 flash exposure yet that still over exposed to some degree.
Is it because the flash was on therefore the shutter would be dialled down to sync speed 1/200th.
Posted the raw untouched image to show and the final image.

Sorry for the waffle and hope some reads this.

Canon 450d was used.

Gaz

Raw untouched

11qplkx.jpg
[/IMG]

Adjusted minus 0.50 stop

200uwrs.jpg
[/IMG]

Final edit

2im2bsn.jpg
[/IMG]

I had read the rules and thought I resized to fit.

Sorry.
 
Thanks for looking and letting me know.
I used a new site to host.
They are showing on my screen.

Gaz

Thats weird one can see and one can't.
 
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Looking at the exif on the first pic your ISO is set to 1600, you could try dropping that down to 200 and try again.
 
Grayo said:
Looking at the exif on the first pic your ISO is set to 1600, you could try dropping that down to 200 and try again.
Click to expand...

Strange it shows as that it was set to 400 for sure I am viewing the raw image in Canon dpp at the mo.
If it were as you say set at 1600 wouldnt the camera adjust things to sort the fill flash.
Or am I being picky and the camera did a good job anyway and it is up to me to edit the raw info.
I have no experiance with flash.Allthough I have bought a speed light and scared to use the thing.

Gaz
 
Sorry your right it is ISO 400 I was looking at something else, bit early in the morning for me, just got up. LOL/ No 3 is a very nice picture thou gives slightly more detail in the dress.
 
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The exif say 1/200, f/5, iso 400 at 39mm.
I'm not sure if you can do HSS with the onboard flash so might of been forced to 1/200 as the highest sync speed, luckily it wasn't 1/60 :) iso 400 is the 'go to' iso for most Canons when using the flash and I guess f/5 is wide open for your lens at 39mm?

Put all that togther and it may come out slightly overexposed, if you want to use the flash as fill and make people 'pop' you might want to try placing the camera in manual, expose for the background being 1-2stops underexposed and the flash will fill the subject back to normal exposure.

If anything in the grand scale of things ETTR or exposing to the right is better than under exposing where if you was bumping the exposure up you'll be adding unwanted noise.

For ETTR have a read here which at the end has a recent update. For advise on the flash and manual go here although be warned you'll be asking about 430EX IIs next ;)
 
Calzor Suzay said:
The exif say 1/200, f/5, iso 400 at 39mm.
I'm not sure if you can do HSS with the onboard flash so might of been forced to 1/200 as the highest sync speed, luckily it wasn't 1/60 :) iso 400 is the 'go to' iso for most Canons when using the flash and I guess f/5 is wide open for your lens at 39mm?

Put all that togther and it may come out slightly overexposed, if you want to use the flash as fill and make people 'pop' you might want to try placing the camera in manual, expose for the background being 1-2stops underexposed and the flash will fill the subject back to normal exposure.

If anything in the grand scale of things ETTR or exposing to the right is better than under exposing where if you was bumping the exposure up you'll be adding unwanted noise.

For ETTR have a read here which at the end has a recent update. For advise on the flash and manual go here although be warned you'll be asking about 430EX IIs next ;)
Click to expand...
Thanks for taking the time to reply indepth.
It seems from your reply I did ok. Yes the settings were as you state. Can you do the under exposure thing with onboard flash "pop up" ?
As I say I have bought a 580 ex but as you can see I have not even used the pop up before now as I don't generaly take people pictures as I am to self concious but yesterday I felt pretty bold and asked to take this one.

Gaz

Will check the links out.
 
cargo said:
I saw the press or professional photographer taking is shots all with is huge telephoto lens and speedlight "hotshoe mounted with the plastic diffuser on" he had the flash ponited up into the air "eg not straight at his subject.A lot of these images he was a fare old distance from his subjects.
Click to expand...

:lol: Pointing a stofen at the sky.
 
Andy_S said:
:lol: Pointing a stofen at the sky.
Click to expand...
I did think that was strange. As if you have one of the stofen things on I thought you could aim the flash towards the subject or at least angled upwards slightly but outdoors there is nothing to bounce off.
Or am I missing something ?

Gaz
 
I usually find about -1 1/3 to -1 2/3 FEC works well for fill flash, that may help but your edited shots look good
 
cargo said:
As I say I have bought a 580 ex but...
Click to expand...

Where'd you say that :D

Yeah manual camera and on board flash in TTL should work to give you darker barkground to person pop, it won't work though if you're trying to over power the sun or throw the flash too far, the on board one is pretty weedy but it looked over cast so should of worked out ok, what you can't do with the onboard is put in into manual but for those candid moments you'd be faffing around with more levels in manual so TTL works well :)

With a 580 you'll be able to blast more and further, it'll do HSS but bear in mind that really sucks the power out of it also you'll be able to bounce, useful for aiming at the clouds :lol:
 
Calzor Suzay said:
Where'd you say that
Click to expand...

Sorry I may have thought it and not wrote it.
Needless to say I really do appreciate the time you have taken to give me guidence on this..

Gaz
 
wealthysoup said:
I usually find about -1 1/3 to -1 2/3 FEC works well for fill flash, that may help but your edited shots look good
Click to expand...
Cheers for your info I will try this out next time.This is for the pop up flash I am assuming?
Thanks for your encouragment on the photos.

Gaz
 
Incidentally, the guidance/usage notes that come with diffusers (e.g. Stofen) generally advise that they are to be used with the flash head angled up, or pointing up in the case of a reflective ceiling.
 
As said above, the problem is the daylight which quite bright so the shutter speed naturally needs to rise above 1/200sec at that f/number and ISO, but is capped at that speed by the use of flash (no HSS with the pop-up). The shutter speed will have been blinking in the viewfinder to warn you, but you might have missed that in bright light.

It's easy to fix - just raise the f/number until the shutter speed stops flashing.
 
Sounds like great advice and makes sense to me.I would not have seen the blinking as I were to worried and self concious about asking to take the photo in the first place.
I will prctice this theory in the daylight asap.

Cheers.

If I were to use the 580 ex and selected hss and ettl I would have been ok I guess as the shutter speed would be just as metered?

Gaz
 
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cargo said:
Sounds like great advice and makes sense to me.I would not have seen the blinking as I were to worried and self concious about asking to take the photo in the first place.
I will prctice this theory in the daylight asap.

Cheers.

If I were to use the 580 ex and selected hss and ettl I would have been ok I guess as the shutter speed would be just as metered?

Gaz
Click to expand...

Yes. HSS allows the use of flash at speeds above the normal max x-sync ceiling. With the 580 and HSS enabled, in E-TTL it switches in and out of HSS mode automatically when the shutter speed requires it - you can basically just leave it permanently on and the whole thing works seamlessly :thumbs:

HSS works by completely changing the way the gun fires, turning the flash from a single big pulse into a rapid stream of many smaller pulses, effectively becoming continuous light for a very short time (it looks just like normal flash to the naked eye) but just long enough for the shutter to compete its cycle regardless of shutter speed.

The penalty is greatly reduced maximum power (like 75% loss, and more) so the gun's range is cut by at least half and progressively more and more as the shutter speed rises. The 580 has enough power to make this workable (the pop-up doesn't, hence why they don't do HSS) and is fine for normal people/group shots. Keep an eye on the range indicator on the back of the gun.
 
HoppyUK said:
As said above, the problem is the daylight which quite bright so the shutter speed naturally needs to rise above 1/200sec at that f/number and ISO, but is capped at that speed by the use of flash (no HSS with the pop-up). The shutter speed will have been blinking in the viewfinder to warn you, but you might have missed that in bright light.

It's easy to fix - just raise the f/number until the shutter speed stops flashing.
Click to expand...

Just as a follow up.
I tried this yesterday with the pop up flash and you were spot on the shutter speed does indeed flash, so I dialed the f stop down until it stopped.
So I took an image as I did on the day and it over exposed "as expected" then did as you said which was better but the best results were with flash exposure set to -1 2/3.
Which someone else did mention in the thread.
If I am finding the pop up hard work god help me with the 580.

Thanks for helping. "everyone"

Gaz
 
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cargo said:
Just as a follow up.
I tried this yesterday with the pop up flash and you were spot on the shutter speed does indeed flash, so I dialed the f stop down until it stopped.
So I took an image as I did on the day and it over exposed "as expected" then did as you said which was better but the best results were with flash exposure set to -1 2/3.
Which someone else did mention in the thread.
If I am finding the pop up hard work god help me with the 580.

Thanks for helping. "everyone"

Gaz
Click to expand...

Result :thumbs:

Dialling in flash compensation is almost to be expected and -1 2/3rds is quite a lot, but not uncommon.

The problem with fill-in flash is there are two exposures, which is double the potential for error, and with fill-in the amount you need varies quite a bit according both to the subject/conditions and personal taste.

Some people find centre-weighted metering is more consistent than evaluative/matrix for this job. Evaluative can be too clever for its own good ;) Also check the use of the Flash Exposure Lock button (FEL*) in the handbook.
 
Will check that out.
I have my metering set to centre weighted all the time "rightly or wrongly" I change it to spot when there is a backlite scene or if there is something particular that I want to meter for.

Thanks again.

Gaz
 
cargo said:
Will check that out.
I have my metering set to centre weighted all the time "rightly or wrongly" I change it to spot when there is a backlite scene or if there is something particular that I want to meter for.

Thanks again.

Gaz
Click to expand...

Spot is for key-tone metering, strictly in manual. And only if you know exactly what you're doing ;)

At any other time it will send your exposure all over the place. Basically, don't.
 
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