How to meter in camera with sb600

SabrinaO · Nov 10, 2010

I'm obviously doing something wrong. The speedlight is attached do my d5000, but it's almost like it's not reading it because the metering indicator still shows that shots will be underexposed. That's not possible because the flash would fire. The only way I can meter a perfect exposure is to dial down the shutter speed dramatically, which is not ideal. Please help

kundalini · Nov 10, 2010

Shutter speed affects how much or how little ambient light is allowed in the shot. Flash exposes for the subject.

What shooting mode are you using? What mode is your flash in?

Meter for the ambient if you want background elements to show.

TTL flash mode is the easy peasy mode.

Examples?

SabrinaO · Nov 11, 2010

I shoot in manual and my flash is set to TTL. how does the camera meter the flash?

SabrinaO · Nov 11, 2010

Wow... How did i post in this section??
Oops.

Slaphead · Nov 11, 2010

The meter on your camera only meters for scene without flash. What happens with the flash in TTL mode is that the flash fires a quick pre-flash just before the shutter opens. The camera then measures this pre-flash and works out how much power the flash must provide to expose the subject or scene correctly.

The problem with TTL is that it easily confused, especially in situations where there are a lot of highly reflective objects - using flash to take a picture of somebody standing in front of a window will generally result in an under exposed image.

SabrinaO · Nov 11, 2010

Slaphead said:
The meter on your camera only meters for scene without flash. What happens with the flash in TTL mode is that the flash fires a quick pre-flash just before the shutter opens. The camera then measures this pre-flash and works out how much power the flash must provide to expose the subject or scene correctly.

The problem with TTL is that it easily confused, especially in situations where there are a lot of highly reflective objects - using flash to take a picture of somebody standing in front of a window will generally result in an under exposed image.

hmmmm... ok because i was just confused at this:

It seems like he's metering his flash in camera at 00:34.
Maybe he has a camera that can do this?