Shutter speed? manual vs auto

tony09uk

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Tony
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Hi I have been working with my flash to understand how distances and angles affect the look of the shot. I have been doing this by using full auto as i cant work out how to choose my shutter speed. How do i use an off camera flash on manual mode without a light meter
 
tony09uk said:
Hi I have been working with my flash to understand how distances and angles affect the look of the shot. I have been doing this by using full auto as i cant work out how to choose my shutter speed. How do i use an off camera flash on manual mode without a light meter

Your shutter speed won't affect the flash exposure. Have a read on the term flash sync speed and how the ambient light exposure is independently controlled from the flash exposure by the shutter speed.

Letting your camera choose both aperture and shutter takes all the control away from you.

As for the lack of a lightmeter. Some use them religiously, others check their exposure on the camera generated histogramme and adjust settings accordingly. Then check the next frame, flush and repeat until you like it.
 
As an experiment, set your camera to manual and say 1/200 and 5.6. Set your flash to manual, full power and take a picture of an object. Then look at the exposure, too much or too little? If too little drop a stop or move closer. If you need less then adjust your flash power to get the right exposure.
Remember the shutter speed does not control exposure when using flash only the apeture and distance. Have a play but try and keep the experiment controlled so you only change one bit of the eqaution at a time and you will soon see how easy you can control exposure.

Then repeat with the same subject but bounce the flash of the ceiling with the same subject!
 
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