Canon flash

[Hesbehindyou]

Re: Canon TTL flash what could be worse ?

Most recently I've been using manual settings on my camera and not AV mode.

Av mode limits the flash to fill. I quickly learnt to go manual on camera as the flash was often too underpowered for my tastes in Av. Sound like the problems you were having?

 

[Larsskv]

Re: Canon TTL flash what could be worse ?

I will guess that either your particular unit is malfunctioning or you are not operating it properly. It is entirely possible that you have a plus or minus exposure chosen on the flash or you have the same chosen on your camera, which would be a global change, affecting not only the flash exposure but the ambient exposure as well. As someone who used strobes back in the seventies, I think I have some experience here and would like to offer you some suggestions. First, don't EVER let the strobe do your thinking for you. No matter how sophisticated, no camera or strobe can successfully make decisions like that. You need to understand how it thinks and constrain its thinking so that it give you an acceptable result. Let me explain: First, set you camera on Tv. Set your shutter at 1/60, or the lowest shutter speed you can reliably handhold. Nest, set your ISO to give you a good exposure at the aperture you would like to shoot at in that location without the strobe. I generally (but not always) set the strobe to +1/3. Now you have constrained its thinking to give you an exposure close to the base exposure in the room. NEVER point the strobe directly at the subject. Bounce it off the ceiling while using a modifier like the Lumiquest 80/20 or the little white card (in my opinion slightly less effective) that you can pull out of the 580EX. In my experience at hundreds of venues, the aperture hovers around f/2.8, the shutter stays at 1/60 and the ISO is 400-1000. What you are aiming at is an exposure looks just like what your eye sees, only better. The bounce light from the strobe + the adequately rendered ambient exposure gives you a good even light that shows the venue properly. The small amount of forward-directed light from the strobe clears up raccoon eyes and cleans up the color. I use a flash bracket that always keeps the flash directly over the lens, so that any shadows fall below and behind the subject. I often use gels over the strobe the match the existing light in the room. This is a choice that only your own experience can inform and of course is the subject of a different and much longer post. Now at each shot you need to think like a strobe: Is there a window behind the subject or in the field of view that will mess up its thinking? If so change your position or exposure. Common at corporate events are group shots involving shiny award plaques. Tell your subjects to angle the plaques slight downward or the reflection off the plaque will cause a severe under-exposure, not to mention Photoshop post production work. These are just 2 examples of things that cause auto-exposure failure. There are many others and your experience should be your guide here. White tablecloths, black walls and glass-covered pictures in the background are others. Of course, you need to be shooting RAW. This will allow you to make nearly every exposure spot-on. That said, flash auto exposure has came a long way since the seventies. It is way more accurate and reliable. Back in the day, you educated yourself by carrying a hand-held meter and measuring exposure and comparing that to what your eye/experience told you was correct. After a while, you would get pretty sharp at guessing exposure. Cameras are not foolproof now and have never been. By properly guiding the instrument, you can produce professional quality work far more easily than was possible in the seventies. Is it stressful? Yes, it is. You are combining your experience and a mechanical/electronic device in an effort to create a perfect record of an event, done in real time. Stress is what causes you to be sharp, not only technically, but also to improve your eye, to recognize good images as they occur and capture them. When all of this works together and you are on your game, it is exhilarating.
Regards,
Tony

Great post!

 

[YuengLinger]

Re: Canon TTL flash what could be worse ?

"The simple fact is that depending on a machine to make the decision will always introduce variables that the machine cannot recognize and compensate for."

Which fails to explain the immense popularity of everything from automatic transmission to, umm, auto focus?

Some situations ETTL works best, other situations manual mode is a better choice. To make a blanket statement that only Manual mode on flash is the right way is, first, wrong, and, second, eliminating a lot of the great tech we are paying for in speedlites and Canon bodies.

If you only shoot Manual with your body, you are an ideologue first, and a rather frustrated photographer second. If you ONLY shoot Av or Tv, you are going to be blowing exposure fairly often.

If you ONLY shoot at 1/60th with flash, you are failing to take full advantage of the power of the speedlite and not actually controlling ambient light without sacrificing optimal ISO. Sometimes max sync speed is best, which is 1/200th in the 5D3--especially for fill. Sometimes dragging the shutter is best for a situation.

There are times when using ETTL and FEC is faster, smarter, and more likely to produce excellent exposures (meaning with near the max amount of data in the RAW file). There are times when only manual gives enough power, dispenses with the pre-flash, and maintains consistent output regardless of distance or ambient light.

There don't have to be camps of never use this or never use that. A smart mongoose uses the right tactic for each cobra it encounters!

If you have been using flash since the 70's but haven't read excellent books (by Joe McNally, Syl Arena, Neil Van Niekirk, and several others) lately, say the past five years, then you really don't know what your speedlites are capable of, how to get the most out of them, and how to avoid frustration. And you are doing a disservice to other photographers when you browbeat them about innovation being just meaningless marketing hype.

"You young whippersnapper, all that automatic stuff is just a bunch of hooey. Real men use manual!"

The problem with being so experienced is that sometimes progress just passes you by because you think you've learned the best ways and haven't been open to better ways that have definitely been working for many, many photographers.

 

[rlarsen]

Re: Canon

Canon

 

[FECHariot]

Re: Canon TTL flash what could be worse ?

I will guess that either your particular unit is malfunctioning or you are not operating it properly. It is entirely possible that you have a plus or minus exposure chosen on the flash or you have the same chosen on your camera, which would be a global change, affecting not only the flash exposure but the ambient exposure as well. As someone who used strobes back in the seventies, I think I have some experience here and would like to offer you some suggestions. First, don't EVER let the strobe do your thinking for you. No matter how sophisticated, no camera or strobe can successfully make decisions like that. You need to understand how it thinks and constrain its thinking so that it give you an acceptable result. Let me explain: First, set you camera on Tv. Set your shutter at 1/60, or the lowest shutter speed you can reliably handhold. Nest, set your ISO to give you a good exposure at the aperture you would like to shoot at in that location without the strobe. I generally (but not always) set the strobe to +1/3. Now you have constrained its thinking to give you an exposure close to the base exposure in the room. NEVER point the strobe directly at the subject. Bounce it off the ceiling while using a modifier like the Lumiquest 80/20 or the little white card (in my opinion slightly less effective) that you can pull out of the 580EX. In my experience at hundreds of venues, the aperture hovers around f/2.8, the shutter stays at 1/60 and the ISO is 400-1000. What you are aiming at is an exposure looks just like what your eye sees, only better. The bounce light from the strobe + the adequately rendered ambient exposure gives you a good even light that shows the venue properly. The small amount of forward-directed light from the strobe clears up raccoon eyes and cleans up the color. I use a flash bracket that always keeps the flash directly over the lens, so that any shadows fall below and behind the subject. I often use gels over the strobe the match the existing light in the room. This is a choice that only your own experience can inform and of course is the subject of a different and much longer post. Now at each shot you need to think like a strobe: Is there a window behind the subject or in the field of view that will mess up its thinking? If so change your position or exposure. Common at corporate events are group shots involving shiny award plaques. Tell your subjects to angle the plaques slight downward or the reflection off the plaque will cause a severe under-exposure, not to mention Photoshop post production work. These are just 2 examples of things that cause auto-exposure failure. There are many others and your experience should be your guide here. White tablecloths, black walls and glass-covered pictures in the background are others. Of course, you need to be shooting RAW. This will allow you to make nearly every exposure spot-on. That said, flash auto exposure has came a long way since the seventies. It is way more accurate and reliable. Back in the day, you educated yourself by carrying a hand-held meter and measuring exposure and comparing that to what your eye/experience told you was correct. After a while, you would get pretty sharp at guessing exposure. Cameras are not foolproof now and have never been. By properly guiding the instrument, you can produce professional quality work far more easily than was possible in the seventies. Is it stressful? Yes, it is. You are combining your experience and a mechanical/electronic device in an effort to create a perfect record of an event, done in real time. Stress is what causes you to be sharp, not only technically, but also to improve your eye, to recognize good images as they occur and capture them. When all of this works together and you are on your game, it is exhilarating.
Regards,
Tony

It could have been a great post, but after 35 sentences or so without a paragraph break, my head exploded. Maybe next post, just hit enter a couple of times after say every 15 or 20 sentences. Don't mind if it its in the middle of a train of thought or not: it would be an improvement.

 

[neuroanatomist]

Re: Canon TTL flash what could be worse ?

My grandfather had an old Pontiac with a 454 V8. Man, that thing purred. Accelerated so smooth, beyond a cushy ride. The carburetor was really top notch, did a great job with the leaded gasoline. Boy oh boy, why don't today's sedan's have that much power and smoothness?

What, a Stone Age relic isn't relevant to the conversation?

 

[d]

Re: Canon TTL flash what could be worse ?

Thought I might break this up so that it's actually readable.

I will guess that either your particular unit is malfunctioning or you are not operating it properly. It is entirely possible that you have a plus or minus exposure chosen on the flash or you have the same chosen on your camera, which would be a global change, affecting not only the flash exposure but the ambient exposure as well.

As someone who used strobes back in the seventies, I think I have some experience here and would like to offer you some suggestions. First, don't EVER let the strobe do your thinking for you. No matter how sophisticated, no camera or strobe can successfully make decisions like that. You need to understand how it thinks and constrain its thinking so that it give you an acceptable result.

Let me explain: First, set you camera on Tv. Set your shutter at 1/60, or the lowest shutter speed you can reliably handhold. Nest, set your ISO to give you a good exposure at the aperture you would like to shoot at in that location without the strobe. I generally (but not always) set the strobe to +1/3. Now you have constrained its thinking to give you an exposure close to the base exposure in the room.

NEVER point the strobe directly at the subject. Bounce it off the ceiling while using a modifier like the Lumiquest 80/20 or the little white card (in my opinion slightly less effective) that you can pull out of the 580EX. In my experience at hundreds of venues, the aperture hovers around f/2.8, the shutter stays at 1/60 and the ISO is 400-1000. What you are aiming at is an exposure looks just like what your eye sees, only better. The bounce light from the strobe + the adequately rendered ambient exposure gives you a good even light that shows the venue properly. The small amount of forward-directed light from the strobe clears up raccoon eyes and cleans up the color.

I use a flash bracket that always keeps the flash directly over the lens, so that any shadows fall below and behind the subject. I often use gels over the strobe the match the existing light in the room. This is a choice that only your own experience can inform and of course is the subject of a different and much longer post. Now at each shot you need to think like a strobe: Is there a window behind the subject or in the field of view that will mess up its thinking? If so change your position or exposure.

Common at corporate events are group shots involving shiny award plaques. Tell your subjects to angle the plaques slight downward or the reflection off the plaque will cause a severe under-exposure, not to mention Photoshop post production work. These are just 2 examples of things that cause auto-exposure failure. There are many others and your experience should be your guide here. White tablecloths, black walls and glass-covered pictures in the background are others.

Of course, you need to be shooting RAW. This will allow you to make nearly every exposure spot-on. That said, flash auto exposure has came a long way since the seventies. It is way more accurate and reliable. Back in the day, you educated yourself by carrying a hand-held meter and measuring exposure and comparing that to what your eye/experience told you was correct. After a while, you would get pretty sharp at guessing exposure.

Cameras are not foolproof now and have never been. By properly guiding the instrument, you can produce professional quality work far more easily than was possible in the seventies. Is it stressful? Yes, it is. You are combining your experience and a mechanical/electronic device in an effort to create a perfect record of an event, done in real time. Stress is what causes you to be sharp, not only technically, but also to improve your eye, to recognize good images as they occur and capture them.

When all of this works together and you are on your game, it is exhilarating.

Regards,
Tony

 

[YuengLinger]

Re: Canon TTL flash what could be worse ?

Just from paragraph style and content...I'm going to go out on a limb and ask the OP, rlarsen, if he is posting under multiple names? Hmm...? Is he also Tony?

And NormlNorm?

Oy vey.

 

[deleteme]

Re: Canon TTL flash what could be worse ?

"The simple fact is that depending on a machine to make the decision will always introduce variables that the machine cannot recognize and compensate for."

Which fails to explain the immense popularity of everything from automatic transmission to, umm, auto focus?

Some situations ETTL works best, other situations manual mode is a better choice. To make a blanket statement that only Manual mode on flash is the right way is, first, wrong, and, second, eliminating a lot of the great tech we are paying for in speedlites and Canon bodies.

If you only shoot Manual with your body, you are an ideologue first, and a rather frustrated photographer second. If you ONLY shoot Av or Tv, you are going to be blowing exposure fairly often.

If you ONLY shoot at 1/60th with flash, you are failing to take full advantage of the power of the speedlite and not actually controlling ambient light without sacrificing optimal ISO. Sometimes max sync speed is best, which is 1/200th in the 5D3--especially for fill. Sometimes dragging the shutter is best for a situation.

There are times when using ETTL and FEC is faster, smarter, and more likely to produce excellent exposures (meaning with near the max amount of data in the RAW file). There are times when only manual gives enough power, dispenses with the pre-flash, and maintains consistent output regardless of distance or ambient light.

There don't have to be camps of never use this or never use that. A smart mongoose uses the right tactic for each cobra it encounters!

If you have been using flash since the 70's but haven't read excellent books (by Joe McNally, Syl Arena, Neil Van Niekirk, and several others) lately, say the past five years, then you really don't know what your speedlites are capable of, how to get the most out of them, and how to avoid frustration. And you are doing a disservice to other photographers when you browbeat them about innovation being just meaningless marketing hype.

"You young whippersnapper, all that automatic stuff is just a bunch of hooey. Real men use manual!"

The problem with being so experienced is that sometimes progress just passes you by because you think you've learned the best ways and haven't been open to better ways that have definitely been working for many, many photographers.

Just the sort of condescending comment I expect to get here.
As I noted in my post the usual response is "You are not doing it right."
Yours is generously followed with a heaping measure of assumption that I am absolutist in my process or that I have never explored the subtleties of flash exposure.

This is an error on your part.

I have used flash carefully and creatively for 40+ years. From the days of using a tape measure to check flash to subject distance to regularly employing upwards of 12 remotely triggered strobes on commercial productions. There is scarcely an exposure I make that does not involve strobe lighting.

It is a matter of objective fact that TTL exposure is dependent on the reflectivity of the subject in front of the camera and the assumptions the camera makes about that reflectivity.
Even small movements of subjects in contrasty situations (Which is very common at weddings and events) will dramatically change exposure from frame to frame.
You might note that virtually every demo of OCF with TTL is an enormously tedious iterative process of shooting, chimping, and exposure comp. THEN the subject turns slightly and the process begins again.

As for being enslaved to any particular shutter speed, aperture or pair of pants I don't appreciate a juvenile assumption of my lack of technical ability. Sorry, but I have been doing this at far deeper level than you can imagine for longer than you can possibly know.

I have little patience with "advice" from fanboys who learned their craft by reading press releases and blogs written by "pros" shilling for manufacturers. I was doing more complex work than McNally and Arena and Niekirk before the internet was invented. You, apparently are still awed by matches and other great advance in lighting.

Learn your facts and your craft and you won't be so quick to write such annoying posts.

 

[Ozarker]

Re: Canon TTL flash what could be worse ?

If you only shoot Manual with your body, you are an ideologue first, and a rather frustrated photographer second.

I like the rest of your post, but I don't necessarily agree with the "ideologue" part. Some, I think, always use manual because we like to. I do the same with flash. Personally, I couldn't care less what others want to do and don't advocate either way.

I've shot local high school football games (just for myself) at night in manual mode with good results. Yes, AV mode may have been easier... but not as much fun for me.

 

[rlarsen]

Re: Canon

I'm sure glad Norm showed up. No doubt a guy with a client list, portfolio, and list of awards to rival the "experts" here.
He clearly speaks from real experience and a sound mind.

 

[YuengLinger]

Re: Canon TTL flash what could be worse ?

I'm sure glad Norm showed up. No doubt a guy with a client list, portfolio, and list of awards to rival the "experts" here.
He clearly speaks from real experience and a sound mind.

It's "The Three Faces of Eve"! (rlarsen, please thank Normlnorm for using paragraphs!)

As for chimping, it is a slightly derisive term for taking advantage of the camera's light meter with what I think, in the 5DIII, is a very good histogram. I think most of us learn to avoid it when it means missing shots, but even in the horse and buggy days, surely photographers looked at their handheld light meters and even used POLAROIDS to make sure exposure and other aspects were correct during a shoot.

So, call me a proud chimper!

I think you must have some kind of chip on your shoulder to dismiss the advice of great photographers. Joe McNally's career suggests he knows what he is doing, as do his images.

CanonFanBoy, perhaps "ideologue" was heated rhetoric. I intended to say those who insist others shoot only in Manual are doing so based on a misguided sense of purity. I'm sure you enjoy the challenges, just as I used to enjoy driving a stick shift until I got tired of it...(I think that happened after I fell in love and realized shifting gears got in the way of holding hands.)

I'm using manual about 75% of the time, when the subject is in ambient lighting which is pretty steady but background light is changing, which would throw off Av.

Tv occasionally when shutter speed is critical, but I don't do a lot of action or birds in flight.

Av when the light is changing rapidly for the whole scene without creating significant contrast between subject and background. I just find that no matter how quick I am, the camera is faster in this scenario. And I can concentrate confidently on framing, timing, etc.

As long as somebody doesn't feel guilty about using ETTL or Av or, gasp, even P, just because an artiste is saying pencils, brushes, oil, and canvas are the only pure ways to capture an image.

 

[Ozarker]

Re: Canon TTL flash what could be worse ?

I'm sure you enjoy the challenges, just as I used to enjoy driving a stick shift until I got tired of it...(I think that happened after I fell in love and realized shifting gears got in the way of holding hands.).

The challenge really came after holding hands became "automatic".

 

[rlarsen]

Re: Canon

Canon

 

[Mikehit]

Re: Canon TTL flash what could be worse ?

So it sounds to me that what you are saying is that the problem is not Canon-specific. Which suggests it is a technological limitation met by all manufacturers. Which implies something about the practicality of what you seem to want.

 

[rlarsen]

Re: Canon

Canon

 

[YuengLinger]

Re: Canon TTL flash what could be worse ?

I'm sure you enjoy the challenges, just as I used to enjoy driving a stick shift until I got tired of it...(I think that happened after I fell in love and realized shifting gears got in the way of holding hands.).

The challenge really came after holding hands became "automatic".

In my case, she would completely agree with you.

 

[tpatana]

Re: Canon TTL flash what could be worse ?

Yesterday shot ~1500 shots with camera on manual and flash on ETTL automatic blasting directly at models without any modifier or bounce. Today shot ~1500 shots with camera on manual and manual flash through umbrella. Time to go check which ones came better.

 

[GaryJ]

Re: Canon TTL flash what could be worse ?

I will guess that either your particular unit is malfunctioning or you are not operating it properly. It is entirely possible that you have a plus or minus exposure chosen on the flash or you have the same chosen on your camera, which would be a global change, affecting not only the flash exposure but the ambient exposure as well. As someone who used strobes back in the seventies, I think I have some experience here and would like to offer you some suggestions. First, don't EVER let the strobe do your thinking for you. No matter how sophisticated, no camera or strobe can successfully make decisions like that. You need to understand how it thinks and constrain its thinking so that it give you an acceptable result. Let me explain: First, set you camera on Tv. Set your shutter at 1/60, or the lowest shutter speed you can reliably handhold. Nest, set your ISO to give you a good exposure at the aperture you would like to shoot at in that location without the strobe. I generally (but not always) set the strobe to +1/3. Now you have constrained its thinking to give you an exposure close to the base exposure in the room. NEVER point the strobe directly at the subject. Bounce it off the ceiling while using a modifier like the Lumiquest 80/20 or the little white card (in my opinion slightly less effective) that you can pull out of the 580EX. In my experience at hundreds of venues, the aperture hovers around f/2.8, the shutter stays at 1/60 and the ISO is 400-1000. What you are aiming at is an exposure looks just like what your eye sees, only better. The bounce light from the strobe + the adequately rendered ambient exposure gives you a good even light that shows the venue properly. The small amount of forward-directed light from the strobe clears up raccoon eyes and cleans up the color. I use a flash bracket that always keeps the flash directly over the lens, so that any shadows fall below and behind the subject. I often use gels over the strobe the match the existing light in the room. This is a choice that only your own experience can inform and of course is the subject of a different and much longer post. Now at each shot you need to think like a strobe: Is there a window behind the subject or in the field of view that will mess up its thinking? If so change your position or exposure. Common at corporate events are group shots involving shiny award plaques. Tell your subjects to angle the plaques slight downward or the reflection off the plaque will cause a severe under-exposure, not to mention Photoshop post production work. These are just 2 examples of things that cause auto-exposure failure. There are many others and your experience should be your guide here. White tablecloths, black walls and glass-covered pictures in the background are others. Of course, you need to be shooting RAW. This will allow you to make nearly every exposure spot-on. That said, flash auto exposure has came a long way since the seventies. It is way more accurate and reliable. Back in the day, you educated yourself by carrying a hand-held meter and measuring exposure and comparing that to what your eye/experience told you was correct. After a while, you would get pretty sharp at guessing exposure. Cameras are not foolproof now and have never been. By properly guiding the instrument, you can produce professional quality work far more easily than was possible in the seventies. Is it stressful? Yes, it is. You are combining your experience and a mechanical/electronic device in an effort to create a perfect record of an event, done in real time. Stress is what causes you to be sharp, not only technically, but also to improve your eye, to recognize good images as they occur and capture them. When all of this works together and you are on your game, it is exhilarating.
Regards,
Tony

+1

 

[Pookie]

Re: Canon TTL flash what could be worse ?

The imaginary and condescending tale from Mr. Neuroanatomist about his "friend" with poor hammering skills doesn't offend me. My skin is thick and some online mocking is to be expected. I've been a working pro for a long time but always welcome friendly advice and suggestions from anyone willing to share. I have more questions than answers and
admire those with great success and few challenges. Rudy Winston, Canon's top camera tech, has been a source of helpful guidance and support and happily shares customer suggestions to Canon research and development in Japan.

This I don't believe for a second...