- flash problem.jpg (0/1) Canon probs when using 550EZ flash

Hi,

Can anyone shed some light on a problem I am having. (no pun intended)

I use an EOS 1d Mk2 with a 550EZ flash.

I set camera on evaluative metering and manually select a focus point.

I focus on main subject and recmpose shot if required.

Quite often I get over-exposure. But sometimes the exposure is OK.

Can anyone point me in the right direction please.

Sorry for posting a pic in here but it does illustrate my point. The
focus point was in the middle of the frame in this instance.

TIA

Dave H

 

From: <>

| Hi,
|
| Can anyone shed some light on a problem I am having. (no pun intended)
|
| I use an EOS 1d Mk2 with a 550EZ flash.
|
| I set camera on evaluative metering and manually select a focus point.
|
| I focus on main subject and recmpose shot if required.
|
| Quite often I get over-exposure. But sometimes the exposure is OK.
|
| Can anyone point me in the right direction please.
|
| Sorry for posting a pic in here but it does illustrate my point. The
| focus point was in the middle of the frame in this instance.
|
| TIA
|
| Dave H

I'm glad to see that your JPEG was NOT posted. alt.photography is a discussion only News
Group. The alt.binaries hierarchy is for posting JPEGs and other attachments. You can post
your JPEG to a web page or to a binaries News Group and reference that posted JPEG here.

 

You are using ETTL? No metering is perfect. I wonder if you are too close
and the flash is putting out the minimum amount of light that it can which
is some times too much. I use the 550EX, When close and tight I try to
bounce it whenever I can.. What flash apeture are you using? Perhaps you
need to stop down the lens and make the flash work a little harder....

Just some ideas...

 

I usually shoot on a 16-35 f2.8 at apertures around f8.0.

Sometimes I am quite close when at 16mm.

The jpeg that didn't post showed a couple about 5 feet from the camera,
iso 100, 30mm focal length, 1/20th second exposure. I also had a
stofen flash softening device on the camera.

I have put the image at

http://www.dah.co.uk/flash problem.jpg

so you can see the problem.

Hope you can help

Dave H

 

ETTL is pants on a 1ds but seems much better on a 20d. Use the manual
settings to get consistent flash power output.

 

Dude, try dialing down the exposure compensation on the flash itself -1ev
to -2ev and see what happens.
grol

 

What was the point of that post? Wanna take a stab at actually answering the
guy's question?

 

From: "grolschie" <>

|
|
| What was the point of that post? Wanna take a stab at actually answering the
| guy's question?
|

If you don't get the point then you are surely clueless !

As for answering the question, my knowledge of the subject matter is not up to par to do so.

 

It was a mistake to try to incorporate an image. But luckily it did
not post.

I have put a link to the picture in question, in a previous post.

As for help, many thanks, I now have a few ideas to try.

Many thanks.

Dave H

 

Next time bracket your exposures. Start at f/8 and then 11 and finish with
f/13. Your camera can bracket automaticly and I am sure your flash can too.
However, I have never tried it. I would be concerned the flash wouldn't
charge fast enough. Worth trying tho. You can allways do in manualy...

 

It seems that since you can't really answer the question, you are finding
yourself motivated to do the only thing you can do and that is admonish
folks about following the rules. It's ok, if you can't answer the question
so just sit back and relax, it really is ok, not to have something to say
about it.

I note two things I suspected even before I took a look at the URL. The
subjects are wearing bright colors, in this case white. You can see that the
dresses appear bright white not due to over-exposure alone, but because it
IS so bright, because the younger person's skin is showing up as fairly
darker than the other person and she is blond, yet the one with the dark
hair, shows quite a pale skin color so it seems to be a combination of
bright colors, and over-exposure. It appears that the camera is trying to
bring out the background and because the background is relatively dark, it
is causing the subjects themselves to be over-exposed.

Perhaps spot metering, or center weighted metering might help, or a small
aperture, to reduce the focus length. Note that the back ground and the
subjects are all in focus. That is nice, but maybe they might want to have
the subjects in focus and the back ground out of focus.

Maybe white-balancing might help? Whatever, the solution, my guess is it
involves some method of making the camera understand that it's the young
girls that are the focus and metering source to be used instead of the
background.

The poster could also try zooming in, so that less of the background is
showing so that it doesn't dominate the scene, or perhaps using a lighter
background.

I have the sense that you've been here longer than I have, but I've found
myself dreaming about that silly manual. Too bad I can't get paid real-world
wages for all the work I do in my sleep.

 

I already answered this query in an earlier post, I don't know what is
happening to my posts they seem to get lost or not appear for days. The ETTL
mode adjusts the exposure according to what tone you are focussing on, so if
it is dark it increases the power and if it is light in decreases the power,
the idea being that it is averaging the exposure and it is crap. Use the
manual settings to achieve consistent results. This is what I do, if I am
taking photographs at about 1.5 meters (people shots) at 400ISO and bouncing
off of a low white ceiling, I set the flash to 1/8th power and the aperture
to 4.5, take a test exposure and adjust the aperture according to the
result, usually about 1/2 a stop either way depending on the distance from
the camera to the ceiling to the subject. After a while you get to know how
far away the subject needs to be to make slight adjustments to the aperture
by opening or closing. I usually use a shutter speed of around 1/80th to
capture some ambient light in the background. I hope this post doesn't
disappear too.

 

Hi Guys,

Thanks for all the advice you have all offered on this matter. It has
been of help to me.

1 last thing, SORRY for trying to post a pic in here. It did'nt upload
in any case but hey, we all make mistakes. I learnt from mine.

Dave H