Fill flash but over exposure during out door shoot

[torque6]

Have a strange feeling your picture is already over-expose even without the flash; use ND filter

Under shade is fine, but sometimes have partial afternoon sun. So these situations definitely adjust like siao.....

TTL is "through the lens", which is some sort of auto exposure for the flash. The flash unit fires a pre-flash, measures the amount of light bounced back, calculate the flash power needed to expose the subject, then fires using that flash power. SB-400 is TTL only (no manual flash power, only flash exposure compensation can be adjusted from the camera)

Bounce card is too small and will not contribute to softer lighting. When you want softer lighting, your light source has to become bigger, and has to be close to the subject. Putting a bounce card outdoors will waste flash power as the card will eat up some of the flash power. Even a Gary Fong Lightsphere will not help to enlarge the light source by much, and will not contribute to softer lighting outdoors. However, a Lightsphere or a dome diffuser will help to soften the light indoors IF the light is bounced off surfaces. Essentially, what these diffusers do is that they spread the light everywhere in the hope that the light will bounce off the surrounding walls and ceilings to spread out the light (enlarging the light source tremendously) and thus softens shadows. Outdoors, you're better off saving flash power and using direct flash if you don't have a reflector or soft box or something to enlarge the light source. I didn't know all of these till I saw some of the videos that Lumiquest put up...I popped on the dome diffuser every time I used the flash, thinking that it would magically soften shadows, but that is not the way these things work.

Watching LUmiquest youtube vids now. Thanks for the tip!!

 

[madmartian]

Hi all,

My current setup is D60+50mm 1.4G with SB400/bounce.

I have been to several out door shoots mainly sentosa, orchard, street etc. One problem i encounter is when i try to shoot at 1.4 f-stop with flash sync at 1/200, I get over expose shots when i try to use flash to fill in the shadows.

The only way to deal with this was to manage exposure compensation which I have done. Is there any other way to do this? Or just use a reflector to fill would be a better choice?

Do let me know your comments, thanks in advance.

I'm just reading it as you just want to fill the shadows.
Two ways to go about it. One is get a wireless trigger & two, a TTL cord & either way, fire your flash off camera pointing to the shadows that you want to fill. If by wireless trigger, you can fire the flash on manual mode & set the output manually according to your desire effect.
If this is not what you wanted, please ignore what I've just said

 

[ahboy168]

You see, Nikon likes to **** up people who buy their entry level bodies. Entry level Nikon bodies do not support high speed sync. I'm not sure about Canon flash system, but for Nikon, flash sync is set on the camera body, not the flash unit. There was a situation where even when I was shooting at exposure compensation -2.3EV (heavily backlit) and flash exposure compensation to -2.3EV (there was not much space for me to move around and I was pretty close to the people I was shooting), the pictures were still overexposed.

Best is to use TTL-BL and use the flash exposure compensation, go up to -3EV flash compensation if you have to.

For Canon, you have the option to set at Flash or camera body.
They will communicated to each other straight away.
Even the cheapo basic flash unit like 270EX have High Speed sync.:thumbsup:

 

[brapodam]

For Canon, you have the option to set at Flash or camera body.
They will communicated to each other straight away.
Even the cheapo basic flash unit like 270EX have High Speed sync.:thumbsup:

Let's not start a brand war here

 

[tuwinkk]

try to use the manual mode...
im not a Nikon user..but i also use manual mode on my canon 580ex...
my flash is an old flash and my body also..
ETTL is not worked between my fellow body (450D) to my 580ex..
so, u can try to user manual mode...how i use...i only set the power...
hehe

and ya, please dont make a brand war..

*just my 2cents*

 

[parky]

Under shade is fine, but sometimes have partial afternoon sun. So these situations definitely adjust like siao.....

under midday sun, meter the background with the camera first , and then

minus one or two stops Flash EV with your SB400.

 

[torque6]

under midday sun, meter the background with the camera first , and then

minus one or two stops Flash EV with your SB400.

Oh i didn't know SB400 can control Flash EV under D60 flash control? I thought its a plug and play kinda flash. Flash EV isn't same as camera EV? So the one i had been controling -5ev is SB400 exposure compensation?

I usually just shoot non-flash in Aperture mode, now with flash like more complicated. LOL.

 

[ultrazoom]

Have a strange feeling your picture is already over-expose even without the flash; use ND filter

No need to feel strange, very highly likely, as already pointed out by catchlights in his first post.

 

[cks2k2]

Oh i didn't know SB400 can control Flash EV under D60 flash control? I thought its a plug and play kinda flash. Flash EV isn't same as camera EV? So the one i had been controling -5ev is SB400 exposure compensation?

I usually just shoot non-flash in Aperture mode, now with flash like more complicated. LOL.

Flash EV is not the same as camera EV, but camera EV is a global setting (affects everything including the flash) while flash EV affects only the flash on Nikon.