Fill Flash Techinique

[holidaydom]

OLY gurus - need your help...

I'm using the FL50 on an E500, what's the proper way/settings for fill-flash exposure?

If I force the flash it sometimes will not fire because the metering evaluates a shutter speed that's above 1/180 (even though I've set the flash to FP TTL Mode)

I want the aperature to remain wide open for bokeh and so am unable to use a smaller aperature to get a slower shutter speed.

By trial and error - I get the best results using the Flash on SLOW SYNCRO mode and dailing the Flash to 0EV compensation and the camera to -2.0EV compensation.

Is there a better way of doing this?

 

[holidaydom]

Pardon me if my post is confusing. ;p But basically:

1) Is it normal tha the flash will not fire when the shutter speed is above 1/180 even in FP Mode?

2) Flash compensation: changing the EV on the Flash -VS- changing the EV on the Camera: what's the difference (in effect)?

Thanks guys. :thumbsup:

 

[Hitman]

If you really must use a large aperture, you can try using a 2 or 3-stop ND filter. For the flash FP mode to work poperly, you need to be about 2m from your subject.

Excellent info here;

http://www.planetneil.com/faq/flash-techniques.html
http://www.bdportraits.nl/Documents/Flash_cheat_sheet.pdf

 

[OlyFlyer]

For FP TTL to work you have to be in M or S mode. Set the desired shutter speed and on the camera, the flash must be set to Auto. The selected shutter speed must be about 1/2 to 1 step under what is needed for a photo without flash if fill-in flash is what you want. No need for ND, you can select faster shutter instead. Much better, since it works against camera shake too. On the flash you have to select FP TTL. I think that's all. Works fine with my FL-50 and E-500. Remember, FP reduces the range quite considerably.

 

[holidaydom]

FP reduces the range quite considerably.

Bummer - was shooting birds with my 40-150mm and FL50 at the 150mm end.

The birds where around eye-level, around 3m away, but under tree-cover and so a flash was needed to bring out the colors and freeze them in action. Wanted a big aperature too blur out the background...

Firing the flash in Auto sometimes resulted in a "bright" bird but black background

Firing the flash in Slow Syncro gives more balanced subject/background exposure but sometimes resulted in a blurred bird due to the slower shutter speed in order to allow for background exposure.

Firing the flash in Auto but with -1.0 or -2.0 EV on the Flash or Camera is hit and miss sometimes good/sometimes bad.

Need to practice more but would like to know the proper approach instead of just trial and error. :embrass:

Will post some pics here once I have time to download and post process a bit...

 

[Mikefellh]

Make sure you don't have the INTERNAL flash raised (this will clamp the shutter speed to 1/180).


Also, what setting do you have the flash setting on the CAMERA; it should be to where only the lightning bolt is showing, this is the fill-in flash mode with no words or other symbols showing (you never mentioned using this mode). See the botom of page 51 in the E-500 manual.

 

[Jer]

If you really must use a large aperture, you can try using a 2 or 3-stop ND filter. For the flash FP mode to work poperly, you need to be about 2m from your subject.

Excellent info here;

http://www.planetneil.com/faq/flash-techniques.html
http://www.bdportraits.nl/Documents/Flash_cheat_sheet.pdf

These are really good read. Thanks for the link

 

[holidaydom]

Another good site is here:

http://www.profotos.com/education/promag/articles/october2001/fill_flash/index.shtml

 

[Mikefellh]

Another good site is here:

http://www.profotos.com/education/promag/articles/october2001/fill_flash/index.shtml

Did you read my response...after all you were the one asking for help. Have you tried using the fill-flash mode on the camera, that's what it's there for...just you never mentioned trying it in your posts.

 

[OlyFlyer]

Bummer - was shooting birds with my 40-150mm and FL50 at the 150mm end.

The birds where around eye-level, around 3m away, but under tree-cover and so a flash was needed to bring out the colors and freeze them in action. Wanted a big aperature too blur out the background...

Page 30 of the FL-50 manual has a table over GN/ZOOM/Shutter speed relation. If you need large aperture just increase the shutter speed. Just have a look at the table and experiment a little. 3m is not a great distance, so you should be fine using Super FP. Setting the camera to M mode, ISO 100, shutter 1/500s, f4.5, lens set to 150mm the FL-50 display shows 1-3.6mm range. I did a few testshots and no problems at all. Of course, if you decrease the shutter speed your maximum flash range is increased.

Yes! As Mike points out, he page 51 of the E-500 manual is important to read. Unfortunately the FL-50 manual is quite poor, not really explaining anything. I gave you the wrong information about the camera setting. Of course you have to use the "flash always on" symbol (Lightening), not Auto as I told you. If set to Auto it will only fire if needed, but according to my experience it always fires since I use fast shutter in FP mode. Anyway, best to follow the manual.

 

[OlyFlyer]

Make sure you don't have the INTERNAL flash raised (this will clamp the shutter speed to 1/180).

Unfortunately it is not possible to raise the internal flash with the FL-50 on top of E-500. I wish it was...

 

[Mikefellh]

Unfortunately it is not possible to raise the internal flash with the FL-50 on top of E-500. I wish it was...

I was actually referring to Holidaydom reading the part of using the Fill-Flash mode, rather than Auto or Slow modes he or she tried.

 

[holidaydom]

I was actually referring to Holidaydom reading the part of using the Fill-Flash mode, rather than Auto or Slow modes he or she tried.

My apologies Mike - took me a while to dig out my Camera and Flash maunals to refer to them ;p

Yes - I am firing the Flash in Fill-Flash mode (only the lightning bolt showing, nothing else)

My Flash is set to FP TTL Auto - I usually shoot and check the results in the LCD, dailing down the EV on the Flash as necessary and retake to verify the results.

And the EV correction on the flash is set to ON; so if I dail in a -2EV on the Flash and another -2 flash EV on the camera, the flash will trigger a total of -4EV.

Generally, I shoot like this:
> Use +/-EV on the CAMERA to tweak the exposure for the background/surroundings
> Use +/-EV on the FLASH to tweak the amount of fill in for the subject

Does this approach sound right?

 

[OlyFlyer]

Does this approach sound right?

Yes, it does sound right but maybe you do a bit too much tweaking. Try without any compensation first. Remember, the FL-50 looses power very fast in FP mode.

But again, if you have flash always on than it should fire every time it is charged. It may over/underexpose but it shall definitely fire off. So if it doesn't or if it fires randomly than you may have a contact problem or even worse, hardware (flash or camera or both) error.

 

[holidaydom]

Here's one of the "better" pics I took using my approach metioned eariler...

40-150mm at 77mm, ISO200, 1/500, f4.5, -0.3EV on the Camera, -1.0EV on the Flash

Composition aside, it's pretty well exposed (i think) except for the top-surface of the left wing which is washed out cos it got light from the sun and the flash.

 

[holidaydom]

But again, if you have flash always on than it should fire every time it is charged.

Quenstion:

Is it normal that if I press the shutter while the flash is still charging - the exposure is taken but without the flash firing?

Or should the camera NOT trigger until the flash is fully charged and ready?

 

[drakon09]

It should, with the shutter speed set at no flash.

 

[espion]

Here's one of the "better" pics I took using my approach metioned eariler...

40-150mm at 77mm, ISO200, 1/500, f4.5, -0.3EV on the Camera, -1.0EV on the Flash

Composition aside, it's pretty well exposed (i think) except for the top-surface of the left wing which is washed out cos it got light from the sun and the flash.

And also underexposure under the left side of the body. So it is simultaneously too much and too little flash. Therefore I think the flash settings are incorrect. I would experiment with a smaller aperture, lower ISO, and use TTL mode. The idea is to reduce the exposure due to ambient light and allow the flash to do more work in the shadowed areas.

 

[OlyFlyer]

Quenstion:

Is it normal that if I press the shutter while the flash is still charging - the exposure is taken but without the flash firing?

Or should the camera NOT trigger until the flash is fully charged and ready?

My camera will not trigger the shutter unless the flash is charged and ready, not even if the camera is set to M, when the flash is set to always on and is connected to the camera. That's the way I want it, so I don't know if it is a question of camera set-up or not. Never tryed to disable the function, it is probably possible to disable it. :dunno:

 

[OlyFlyer]

Here's one of the "better" pics I took using my approach metioned eariler...

40-150mm at 77mm, ISO200, 1/500, f4.5, -0.3EV on the Camera, -1.0EV on the Flash

Composition aside, it's pretty well exposed (i think) except for the top-surface of the left wing which is washed out cos it got light from the sun and the flash.

To me it seems to be a very difficult setup, black and white are dominating. It is difficult to judge, but I think even the rock behind is a bit overexposed. As espion said, try to set the flash to FP TTL AUTO. I don't usually use the EV compensation on the flash, only on the camera. You have to check what the value is on the camera, because if you set the flash setting to -1 on the camera and on the flash to -1 than the sum is = -2. Remember, on camera and on flash compensations are added together. Page 17 of the FL-50 manual explains that.