Well, I wish that my non-compromised images were as good as your compromised images…

Martin, that would given a similar warming effect.

Neil vN

In your photo where you used a gold reflector, say i dont have a gold, instead a white or silver one, can i just put a CTO gel on my flash?

Thanks

David .. you’re nearly there.

The only thing I’d change in what you said there, is that you adjust your Flash Exposure Compensation to adjust your flash output – more / less – brighter / darker. It’s not (necessarily) in reaction to your available light.

The only time that I can think of that you’d change your flash output in relation to your available light changing, is when you need to have your flash not act as a touch of fill-flash anymore, but need it to be a dominant light source. THEN you’d change your TTL flash output to allow for changes in ambient exposure.

Other than that, you would change your flash exposure compensation to change how much flash you have in relation to your ambient.

Neil vN

I just spoke with you on the phone and again wanted to say that I am a big fan of yours and follow the blog all the time and have recently finished your On-Camera Flash book (wonderful).

I’m afraid I wasn’t making too much sense when I spoke to you, cause I was a little nervous.

Essentially what I was trying to say is when you shooting in manual mode and you have underexposed the ambient by say 2 stops and adjust your shutter speed to allow more or less light into the exposure for your own artistic preference can’t I accomplish the same thing with TTL flash by putting the camera in manual mode again and then simply adjusting the flash exposure compensation up or down to taste to allow changes for ambient exposure.

Have I just oversimplified this or does that not make any sense what so ever.

Thank you again for speaking with me.

Cheers,

David Robillard

Ivan .. not exactly. You have to consider the ambient exposure and flash exposure as two separate things to consider.

I start off by first getting the ambient exposure. In this case it is my background. I shoot in manual exposure mode on my camera, and therefore my settings are fixed. I decide how I want the background to be exposed.

Then I use flash to expose for my subject in the foreground. In this case I needed +0.7 flash exposure compensation. This doesn’t relate at all to my background exposure. Most cameras have a tendency to under-expose the TTL flash if there is strong backlighting. However, this is not the case here.

Also read the following article on how to balance flash with available light.

Thanks Neil

I received your book yesterday and I’m really enjoying it. Great information.

Andy, check out this page on the effects of maximum flash sync speed. It should answer your questions in more detail.

However, in short quickly .. yes, you could just keep your camera to the max flash sync speed, and it will operate in normal mode. The exception here is the Canon 5D and 5D mk2. (There may be others, but I’m only aware of those two cameras.)

But go through the article .. it answers your questions in more detail.

Neil vN

Regarding high-speed sync, if a camera flash sync speed is set fast (for example, 1/320 Auto FP mode on a Nikon), I understand this allows faster shutter speeds at the expense of some flash power due to the flash ‘pulsing’. For shutter speeds below the flash sync setting – for example, 1/125 – does the flash work in the normal way? That is to say, non high-speed sync / pulsed?

I know that settings for aperture, ISO, shutter speed and flash power must be fluid and changed according to individual situations. My question is whether choosing flash sync speed to a fast mode (Auto FP for Nikon) is one kind of setting that can be made and generally left at that value? Until a situation where it was needed to be slower (although I honestly don’t know what that might be!).

Hope the question makes sense. Thanks again. Andy