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TTL and Manual Flash Modes Q&A with Demos

port boy nineteen sixty five of that name but there's a lot says there's a lot to be said for letting the camera make decisions and just outsmarting it when you know there will be a problem like you're talking about because that's what it comes down to is understanding what the camera is doing how it's making those decisions and then if you understand that you can let it do the work for you and just overpower it when you know that it's going to be making bad decisions because of the things you know about how it's making those decisions exactly so I love it thank you for going over all that that you just went over it was great yeah and I wanted to adams that real quick and just say I remember when I was learning photography everybody said all manual all the time all everything and so I didn't learn for a long time because it was too overwhelmed and so when I let my camera helped me out a little bit shot start shooting aperture priority I actually learned more how manual exposure worked ...

but shooting aperture pretty cause I could see how things would move so it also depends on your shooting in your learning style and the same thing like there is no way that I would have been able teo work out how okay I didn't know how to use a light meter how would I actually use my flash on manual tio I didn't understand how that worked but I started to get more when I let the camera and the flash helped me out so I don't see anything wrong with that is you know howto over smart it I'm totally fine with that kind of looking at the back of that particular flash and above the what plus one point three is thirty five millimetre does I mean there's that have anything to do with any kind of that is a great question I am so glad you asked okay um what you have so what that is is it's a flash zoom and when your flash is talking to your camera so whatever if you have a wireless system or if it's on your camera itself it will detect what focal length you were shooting at and set the zoom appropriately in order to to cover the correct amount of the scene so if I'm at thirty five for example it knows him shooting at a thirty five millimeter lens it's going to spit light out wider because it knows I have to cover a thirty five millimeters scene but if it detects that I'm at one o five for example like most of these consumed two one o five it knows that I'm just photographing probably pretty close and then it's going to give me a narrower beam and that narrower being will help the light travel further if you are shooting cold shoe meaning like you're just having this trigger it's not actually talking your camera maybe it's optical slave you can manually set it and so the difference on up there it says a zoom which means auto zoom so it's detecting from your camera on the back of my flash right now it says m zoom which is manual zoom and so it depends on in the back how you said it on that one saying manual zoom but I'm kind of wondering if you're actually back of your shooting with a seventy two hundred and but you want to do a portrait if it's throwing against the focal and get two hundred millimeters right there and you're like in close is that gonna overpower it or do you have tio kind of compensate and try to take it into doing what you needed to do so the most that it will zoom for example if you're shooting at two hundred really close the most that most of our flash zoom is one of five so it's not going to kick it more than we can possibly be like it's so if for example I'm really close at one on five it still with tt l is talking to the camera so it's still knows how much flash output it's just saying by the way don't waste your energy kicking light out in every direction what we know it's right in front of us so let's just focus our energy ahead instead of wide so it's just helping you conserve energy more okay and or or appropriate the light where it should be it won't overpower anything okay because I'm actually just looking at the actual will go up to two hundred there's a war going to end so it's the same thing and that's the difference between also having the same brand like having one of the most expensive ones his goes up to two hundred be exact same thing it's just saying like okay I've got this bucket of water but I know everything's going to be right ahead and makes them at two hundred so we're going to use a bucket to send it straight ahead instead of trying to kick the water out everywhere just trying to help you decide where that that light goes a couple of things about that that I would just mentioned is if you want for some reason on purpose to have a lot of spread of light uh on the top of your flash you have this thing okay it's a little panel that clicks down and what that does is it actually spreads the light more it diffuses it out more it's a little bit of a diffusion panel kicks it out in more directions just the way that this texture is built that's what it's meant to do so when I click that down what you may see on the back of your camera on the back of your flash is it will go to fourteen millimetres it depends on what flash you have but most will read fourteen when you do that if you ever run into a problem where you keep seeing that you're zoom won't change and stuck it fourteen I've had it before where it was just pulled up a tiny bit like right now it still says fourteen because of what I had done as I had pulled up my little my little white card and then I didn't push it down far enough and so it was still spreading the light out and wasting a lot of energy so watch out for that one and then just one other where we're on gotchas like things that'll mess you up on most flashes I see if you can see this angle you have down right and then there's actually down like below straight ahead it's just a little extra click from ninety degrees and what that is intended for is if you're telling you're telling your camera that you were shooting your camera and flash that you were shooting really close to your subject and that is what that's intended for your saying I'm shooting really close when it does that and this might be your case if for some reason I'm getting too much output you might just want to click it down that extra notch and what it does is it decreases the amount of light that comes out of the camera or out of the flash so if you look on the back when I would actually be shooting it shows the flash pointed down so for some raise your not getting as much kick is you thought it's probably because you just accidentally pushed it down too far so watch out for that too because that could screw you up all right so lindsay we do have a bunch of questions about detail if you want yes please great uh maybe a simple one b for is wondering does the lens affect the flash output in teal the lens you're using okay on and this is also another good point that I wanted to make so I'm going to get to that by a long answer first I just want to tell you how tt l works by the way when you have when you take an exposure how it works nowadays is right before the shutter opens it kicks out something called a pre flash and it kicks out and it reads back through the lens of the camera and says ok based on that little flash we kicked out what's the appropriate so when the shutter opens it kicks out the right amount of flash so the reason that's kind of related is the lens that you use will make a difference based on the aperture but not based on anything else but thankfully because it is determining the output of the flash through the lens it's already compensated in there if you're shooting tl you don't have to worry about it if you're shooting manual you just have to know if you change your aperture it'll make a difference and you have to know with manual that let's say that you're at three point five and you throw on a polarizer you actually just change the light a lot and so yeah you might need to open up and you might need to make some changes based on what's in the front of your camera but yeah with tio it doesn't really matter your aperture that makes a difference that answer was fantastic because it actually kind of answers some of these so I'll go through a couple examples really quick and we can just say because it's going through the lens yes or no phoenix oh two one can I use detail when I point this speed light at a white ceiling is it going to calculate it right and do exposure for a group of people at a wedding for example yep exactly and that's why I don't if I'm bouncing light I never use manual cause there's way too many variables if I'm moving uh so yet teel hopes guests for you helps determine it really useful and then just one more clarification on that if I have modifiers attached the speed light and I used teal how will I tell the camera have something attached as this will change stuff exactly it knows intrinsically because it reads it through the lens perfect okay couple other quick questions on others subject's photo bunny would detail work and give you a better exposure if you set the camera with spot metering so does the meat oring mowed your camera is set to affect tt l ittle no no it shouldn't make a difference because it's reading off of what it hits like what the flash is pointed at s o it doesn't work that way wonderful and one more from seek let avec and a few other people when using wireless triggers with multiple flashes can you set one two t t l and the others manually and can you mix like a t t l flash and then a couple other maybe manual flashes yeah you can do that what you so yes you can mix those but what you don't want to do is you don't want your main flash to be the manual one because then it's looking through the lens for the back one which might be just giving a hair light which looks really dim so then it tries to break in it up because it doesn't realize that that's not what you're trying to let your subject with so I would you condemn finitely mix it but you might have to do a little bit of compensation and kasich gets confused of which flashes supposed to actually be lighting your subject wonderful and then there are a lot of kind questions that are coming in about zooming your flash which was what lorenzo was asking about so can you maybe talk just a little bit more about that in general what affect it has on tt l specifically and then also just in general what effect is zooming your flash have do you mind if I go over there and just you have to do it all right let's suit and I'm going to be tethering so people that need to know that let's take a look and um I am going to set up I'm just going to point this flash at the wall so I'm just gonna clear this area out and stephen if you can go ahead and grab me a flash and my camera oh and I will need that trigger which I think I just left over there move this out of the way okay thank you let's make sure everything looks good all right every pointed straight ahead like ninety degrees that way all right let me just go I'm not tethered if I have mike my flash on manual and on a cold too let's say it's not talking to my camera it does not know what focal length I am at okay and let's say do you mind if I borrow you since she's busy okay can you just stand right here okay let's say that that's not my main light in this case and I actually I just want a little halo of light behind her just a little halo what I can do is I can go ahead and in my manual zoom right now I'm at twenty four I can click it there we go cooking toe one o five and so it takes the beam from twenty four focuses it toe one o five so instead of having the whole wall behind her lit it'll just be a little halo and that might be for creative if eh that or let's say that there's ah band ok that you're photographing and there's one like lead singer in the band all right there standing front and center and you want just a little extra kiss of light just on them what you're shooting a wide shot of the whole band what you would do is you'd manually set your zoom to something like one oh five point at him and then he's just going to get that kiss a light instead of it spreading out if you're shooting at fifty millimeters over the whole band so we're going doing good over there all right okay you can sit back that yes I knew you were a good model though all right so let's give this a test I'm going to put my camera on one sixteenth of this one one sixteenth of the second because I said yesterday that's what I've noticed my camera's good for for a sink speed still eyes so one hundred and I'm going to shoot t t l so my aperture doesn't exactly matter because it should be able to just figure it out for me we'll see if that's true or from the line okay and not point it just at the wall I have to go closer because you fail to see the effect more all right cool okay so this is that what soon okay so this is it zoom one oh five okay you've got kind of a focus me all right so now can you change it to whatever the widest is and if you quickly want to go wide you just pop out that thing in the front no go to fourteen automatically don't do it you can just pop it out to fourteen that's fine okay it was a perfect okay and so in this example see how it gets much more diffuse and it spreads out so it just changes the focus off your beam something else that is recommended and this actually is a perfect segue way that we're over here let me hold this is let's say that you have only one flash for this apollo or there's not three you only have one so with one flash you're just going to get a little hot spot in the center what you might do is set your manual zoom too much wider to fourteen or two twenty four I think twenty four would be fine with this because that little diffusion thing that hates it's a fourteen cuts out a little light so maybe I don't want to do that so let's say I said it to twenty four manual then it'll fill up more of this modifier and it gives me a better quality of light instead of just that hot spot in the center so that is also when it's relevant is once you stick it on modifiers you can also change how you use modifiers as well my friend eric valent we taught a class together sometimes what he does is he takes these umbrellas and he closes them down a little bit like not fully opened and then he focuses the beam so it pops in pops out and gives you like a beam of light on your subject so its practical use but also creative uses well couple questions on that first of all from e nt photography how does zooming your flash heads like this compared to using a snoot or spot grid a suit or a spot great is going to be much more intense um definitely it helps and it would also even helped too focus it and then use a snoop or a spot grid I don't think I have it here it's a little black bag from expo image ing it's like really small uh take a look and see if you see that it's um a snu or grid that easily fits onto your flash and it does that same wraparound saying the same way that flash bender did fitz on super easy and that's a grid um so that light would be drastically more focused than just me focusing uh my zoom wonderful one from r f halligan so if you are using a soft watch what would be the correct zoom setting on the flash do you want it to go wide you wanted teo focused wider is better because it's going toe fill that soft box more great and then I remember this was the question that we had earlier we want to make sure that keep you honest make sure we're going to demo from out of my mind photo can you demonstrate on I got clarification from them in the chat room where do you want to position the flash within the soft box because when you add a trigger sometimes it like puts it off center so that the head is like way off to the side is that a problem do you want to make sure it's perfectly centered can you talk about centering a positioning within the soft box that is yeah that's a good question ideally it's centered ideally what you could actually dio is take a picture being complicated here uh can you put can you put a flash in that uh soft box please what you ideally want to dio is you wanna have it center because that'll give you the most even spread of light there are certain brackets that help you out with that but the reason I think that's a great question is what you don't want to do is say oh man it's not centered I'm going to click my flash down that extra click because it changes your output capabilities so that's actually without like no lie that's a mistake I made a ton of times in the beginning it was like oh it's not centered click and then I screwed up my flash exposures so that um is something to watch out for two and then I don't know we have a good bracket in there that would do that uh there's certain brackets that woulda let you dio is it lets you swivel the whole flash it doesn't matter if my flashes on an angle if I can then check and I have just have a regular fund and then I can take this one off school I'll grab this one this one perfect okay so for example let's say that I'm pointing into this all this have you hold it for a second that's fine dori ok so can a camera see this can you rotate this way a little bit all right right so and you can tell that off so let's say that it's up to high depending on certain brackets you have what it'll let me dio isn't let me angle my flash down and then I can just angling toward the center so that would be more of a bracket purchase to help you out with that so do you have any uh more questions from here in the room while we're here with the pre flash on tt l does that burn through batteries quicker no it's very very very small it's not like a full power flash or anything so I assume that the when we're through the lens we're talking about where it's how much light it's mita ring back through is based on focus point or okay so there's so advanced detail which isn't a t t l which is included in most of the new and higher and flashes it compensates and it knows where your focus point is and it also considers that but the pre flash like it knows that it's looking for the flash that just spit out uh but it also knows it's looking for that information where that focus point it's like it'll it'll uh by if it towards that so your flash should already consider that susan tio with a manual or optically slave is the pre flash on tt l gonna set off that optically slaved flush my answer is no I don't know that one hundred percent but I've never seen it does it I've tried it had problems he tried to have problems like I haven't seen it so that's a great question cause it makes sense that it would yeah it fires and then anything opticals it's and at least my circumstance I mean if they're not if their flights or further away maybe not but in my case I do know that I mean that makes perfect sense that it would so just to clarify for people who didn't quite get what we're saying what your flash is doing is that it is sending out a pulse s o it is flashing and it does it right before your curtain opens like flash is so fast one fifty thousands of a second right it's such a fast thing or one ten thousandth of a second so we can happen once you've already clicked your shutter the quicker trigger before the shutter opens it gets that reading that when it opens it flashes again but it would cause a problem if you have other flashes on manual optically slave if it sees that flash and if you're flat if you're your flashes on manual and it's a full power one to one and it kicks out full power socket a recycle in time to catch that exposure so that makes perfect sense so if you have a problem and you're mixing tt ellen manual that makes a lot of sense where that wouldn't work so that means you might have to either try to block it off so that one can't see the other in that way or have to switch them all to teach yell and then change the settings interesting I like that it's really good