 Joseph M. Kolecki |
Metering with Flash How should you meter when using a flash? Both indoors and outdoors?
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John H. Siskin |
Hi Joseph, It depends on what you mean by flash. If you mean a flash from your camera manufacturer or a TTL flash made for your camera, then your camera meter can actually work with the flash. The flash compensation dial may help you improve your pictures. Try a negative one setting outdoors. If you mean a strobe like a Calumet Travelite or an Alien Bee or a couple of dozen other brands, the camera meter can’t read the light at all. You have to rely on other means. You can buy a strobe meter, which is usually used by standing at the subject and reading the light falling on the subject; or you can guess. I am a big fan of guessing. I usually pick f8 and set my shutter speed to my sync speed. Then I evaluate the image - on a laptop if I can - and decide how to change the lights. The histogram is a big help. There is some magic in this, but experience will help. Thanks, John Siskin
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Joseph M. Kolecki |
Thank you for your response John. I am using a TTL flash... My setup consists of a Nikon D200 with an SB-800 flash. While doing wedding photography, I have noticed that it is very difficult to keep my subject from becomming washed out by the flash. I have tried compensating using exposure value however this affects the entire image, what I would like is a nicely exposed subject (foreground) while keeping a nice vibrantly bright background both indoors and outdoors (while indoors, hopefully with not using too slow of a shutter speed as most of my photos are taken while hand holding). Anyway, you mentioned flash compensation, I will definitly look into that... As for metering itself, I believe my camera does meter for flash settings however my main focus is always brighter background... The metering does not always work to my advantage for that. Thanks again, I truly appreciate your time.
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John H. Siskin |
Hi Joseph, You might want to find the flash compensation dial. The button for it might be around the collar of your shutter button. The in camera meter should do a good job with your flash; it just needs to be told to give more weight to the light in the room. I thing a negative one setting with flash compensation should help with this. I know that some of the new cameras use the focus distance to help figure the amount of flash. Your camera should do that, you might want to check the manual. Thanks, John
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Marius Liebenberg |
Have a look at this site, it is very well detailed and I think you will find the answers to your questions http://www.planetneil.com/faq/flash-techniques.html
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