Fill flash

Admiral Huddy · 2 Sep 2017 at 19:20

I attempted to use fill flash today on a bright sunny day although things didn't go as expected.

Without flash, I was getting f/4 @1/1000 sec which was fine but i wanted to fill the shadows areas..

In aperture mode, why did the shutter speed slow down to 1/200 resulting in over exposed images? External flash TTL was on?

Has the shutter speed sync'd to the flash speed? Is that what has happened?

Thanks

Raymond Lin · 2 Sep 2017 at 20:44

You need high speed sync.

It's basically the flash firing multiple times during the shutter open, and it will drain your battery much quicker.

Btw, always put in manual in flash model, to give yourself full control of the lights.

Minstadave · 2 Sep 2017 at 20:52

Admiral Huddy said:
I attempted to use fill flash today on a bright sunny day although things didn't go as expected.

Without flash, I was getting f/4 @1/1000 sec which was fine but i wanted to fill the shadows areas..

In aperture mode, why did the shutter speed slow down to 1/200 resulting in over exposed images? External flash TTL was on?

Has the shutter speed sync'd to the flash speed? Is that what has happened?

Thanks

Your camera's max flash sync will be 1/200. Without a camera and flash that support high speed sync you're not able to do fill flash in bright light without an ND filter or stopping right down.

http://strobist.blogspot.co.uk/2010/06/using-nd-filters-to-kill-depth-of-field.html?m=1

Raymond Lin · 2 Sep 2017 at 20:54

Watch this.

A leaf shutter eliminates this problem but this is normally found in expensive, like really expensive gear...or the Fuji X100...strangely enough.

D.P. · 2 Sep 2017 at 21:14

ND filter or simply stop down

a1ex2001 · 4 Sep 2017 at 06:57

Raymond Lin said:
You need high speed sync.

It's basically the flash firing multiple times during the shutter open, and it will drain your battery much quicker.

Btw, always put in manual in flash model, to give yourself full control of the lights.

Was going to say something very similar, pretty much the only time I shoot manual is with a flash on the camera in ttl mode.

FloatingPoint · 11 Sep 2017 at 14:51

Canon G series also used to have leaf shutters, not sure if they do any more. As already said it comes down to what the fastest flash sync speed that your camera can do. The other option is to use ND filters in order to get shutter speed down to your flash sync speed maximum at a set aperture.