Is There A Cheat Sheet for External Flash Settings?

[PeK77]

Let me respond to your OP. When I’m shooting a static scene (still life, or portraits, or a room interior), it is feasible to use manual flash, since the subject isn’t moving around and changing the subject/flash distance.
Let’s assume I’m shooting a room during the day, with the windows showing the bright outdoors. Inside, it’s a lot darker, so it’s hard to get a single exposure that will properly light the inside AND allow the outside to show good detail. To fix this, I will use a flash to add enough light inside to allow me to show the outside (through the window) at a “normal” tone.

We’ll assume an exposure for the outside that is 1/500 sec. f/8, ISO 100. I’m shooting a wide-angle and at f/8 I’ll have enough DOF to get everything in the room sharp. If I meter the inside, I’ll get something like 1/15 at f/8, ISO 100. That’s 5 stops darker than the outside. So, I need to add enough light to make the two exposure closer to each other. That’s where the flash comes in. Now I also want the room to look like it is “naturally” lit, and our brain tells us that the inside should be darker than the outside. In photographic terms, that means that the inside exposure should be about 1 to 1 ½ stops darker than the outside. To give the feeling that the light is “natural” I will bounce the flash off the white wall behind me, because I want the photons to spread themselves evenly around the room.

Let’s say I don’t have my flash meter. So the first test shot I will make will shoot the flash at full power. But because my sync speed is 1/250 sec, I need to change my manual exposure to 1/250sec, f/11, ISO 100. First test shot – inside is too bright, but not overwhelmingly so. Next try, I will reduce the flash power to ¼ power (that’s 2 stops), and see what the result is. We’re getting there, but the inside is as bright as the outside. Reduce the flash power to 1/8 power. Now the inside is about 1 stop darker than the outside. You get the sense that you’re “inside” by the amount of light. Good. We’ve arrived where I want to be.

Another scenario I commonly encounter, is that I am shooting something in bright sunshine, and the object of interest is partly in the sun and partly in the shade. Essentially, I need to put enough light into the shadows that the detail there is within 2 stops of the full-sun exposure. For this purpose, I use my flash on the hotshoe, and shoot directly at the subject. I set the camera on E-TTL and let the camera figure out the correct amount of light. However, I also want the shadows to look like the shadows, just with detail. So I set the flash’s exposure compensation to -1 ½ stop, which will nicely fill in the shadows, but still leaves them looking like shadows.

This should give you an idea of the workflow that I follow and the thinking behind the decisions I make when using flash in combination with ambient light.

Thank you! This is exactly what I was looking for! I may dig deeper for a video seminar online. Something tells me if I find a good one it would increase my knowledge significantly.
Your post demonstrated the complexity of some things I would not think of. I would prefer to be more "expert" to shoot with consistent results vs. just winging it and ending up with something different every time. Thank you again for your reply!

 

[KmH]

Portrait Lighting Cheat Sheet Card | DIYPhotography.net

 

[craigdhd]

I just did a search on Scott Robert Lim and his seminar Crazy Stupid Light. Is this something you'd recommend? It is available on his website.

Also - is there a seminar anybody would recommend that I could buy on video?

I found it was a really good tutorial, there's quite a few available on creativelive.com that are good, the kevin kubota one is great and the zakk arias studio lighting one was very informative, they're quite pricey to purchase though so I'd check the site for any replays or upcomming lighting ones before rushing out and buying it. I have to say the scott robert lim one I quite enjoyed particularily as he kind of reminds me of mr chow out the hangover movies.

You could also check out lynda.com first, they're not quite as good imo but there is a free trial available and a cheaper monthly subscription to all videos is easier to manage than the price of the creativelive ones, kelbymedia does a monthly subscription to all content as well and has some good videos, the joe mcnally ones are especially good on speedlights though he seems to work more in ttl with his particular magic. really wish creativelive would do a subscription model!

 

[Village Idiot]

Keep a lighting diary. Test and tune when you need to, but write down notes of your final setup with maybe a sketch of lighting conditions, settings, final photo outcome, etc... Use it for reference for future shoots.