Noob help, Flashgun (Jessops 360AFD)

slimbean007

slimbean007

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James
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Hi, noob on the loose so please be nice!

Just bought the 360AFD, very pleased with it, the flash works full automatic when pointing directly at the subject, however when you tilt or swivel you loose the some of the automatic function, which is fine..

I've been playing with the tilt and swivel and got some reasonable results, however I was wondering is there a guide line of what shutter speeds I should be going for when using the tilt flash?

Should I be setting the camera to the flash or the flash to the camera?

Thanks in advance
 
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Hiya .

I use the same flashgun and asked the same question of why you loose the info on the back of the flash when not pointing straight forward.
http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=370419

Also i read that the iTTL system measures the amount of light coming through the lens from the pre-flash (the first flash).

The camera doesn't know or care if the flash is bouncing off the ceiling, it just meters the amount of light entering through the lens so it should be ok using the iTTl setting as long as the ceiling you bounce from is not to high.

I usually try a shot first and if i think the exposure looks to high or low i just alter the flash compensation in the camera, seems to work.

If this is wrong and there is a better way am sure that someone here will pass on their knowledge.:)

Welcome to the forum if you have not been told before:)
 
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One thing I Will say to you is that, when using a flash, the usual variables of photography (exposure, ISO, aperture), do not apply quite the same.

The main two when using flash are ISO and aperture.

Exposure does not matter, expect for when capturing ambient light, because the flash gun is only activated for a certain amount of time, which is much shorter than your exposure time in camera. This means that the only real way of changing the exposure is through changing the aperture.

A wide open aperture (say 1.8, for example), will let in lots of light, and most probably your result will be as white as a shot of snow. However, stepping down to, perhaps f13 will produce a much better exposed shot. The same goes for ISO, which controls how sensitive the pixels on the sensor are to light, as I'm sure you know.

I hope this gives a little insight into flash photography, and that, really exposure is pretty redundant in this field (as long as it's not 20 seconds!)

P.S. I'm a total noob to flash photography, too. Only got my gun 2 weeks ago and haven't had much time to use it in force yet!
 
slimbean007 said:
Excellent stuff, thanks for the tips and thanks for the welcome too :)

What youve all said above makes sense, I had a bit of a look on youtube and found these two videos which kinda say what youve been saying, thought Id share them with you!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dT1B3bnvHlY

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNmu6_6y7aM
Click to expand...

Ah cheers, I'll check them out in more detail later. I once found a brilliant website/blog of a wedding photographer. She mainly talked about off camera flash, but it was really good. I'll try and find it again. If I do I'll post it up in here.
 
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