Settings for Fill Flash

smyth

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Hey, I was about to go out tonight to do some portraits of my girlfriend for fun, and was going to bring along my flash for a fill flash. I have an old Yashica SLR and I got to thinking: how the hell do I set the flash and camera so I don't ruin the photo, seen as I don't want to waste film.

Here is a picture of my flash unit. The slider selects the ISO you're using, and there is a little red triangle which provides you with an f-stop number. The numbers below that are for the extension of the flash head for wide, "normal" and telephoto distances.

flash.jpg


If someone could give me some sort of idea as to how to go about this, it would be appreciated.
 
You don't :S. Not without ruining some shots anyway. Modern fill flashing works along with the camera metre. That flash looks like an old manual one. I suppose you could start by setting the aperture of the flash a few stops lower than what you are shooting at. This will cause the flash to be darker than normal, but other then that I think it's hit and miss. Maybe someone else can give you a hint.

I say go grab a sheet of cardboard and cover it with the matte side of aluminium foil. That will make a nice reflector.
 
Start by taking a meter reading of her and then setting your flash for 1 stop under exposure. In other words if she meters at f5.6 @1/60, set your flash for f4. It would be easier with a newer flash, it looks as though you will need to adjust your distance to adjust your flash.

If your camera has exposure compensation then you can play with that as well but to further tweak the shot you most likely will have to play with the speed. Make sure to have your ratios right from the get-go.

mike
 
guess I'll just have to do some trial and error, as all the camera's meter shows is shutter speed.... the camera itself has a flash mode, so i guess I might try that :-|
 
Check ebay for a hand held meter. It's a good investment anyway. Do a search to see which ones Peeps here like.

BTW if it tells you which shutter speed and you can look at the aperture setting on the lens you can still use the flash. Set the aperture you want on the lens- say f5.6 and then set the flash to f4. Double check that you have a usable flash speed, not too low (for camera shake or subject movement) and not too high (beyond the sync speed- likely 250 maybe less you can Google it). Once set and you stand at the appropriate distance away, fire away.

mike

If f5.6 won't work for you then move everything up or down equally until it does. I'm afraid that you are stuck with whole stops so moving inside the range described on the flash is the only way to adjust within a stop of fill.
If it says 9 feet then at 7 1/2 you will be near +2/3 stops and at `11 you should be -2/3 stops more or less go play ;)
 
what kind of meter should I be looking for? Ambient, spot... etc.
 
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Wayne, this is an old, low-end flash, and it used Auto-Thyristor technology. For whatever ASA that was in use, when the flash was set to AUTO mode, the proper f/stop to use was shown by the small, orange arrow. The AUTO distance range was shown by the extent of the solid orange line, from near to far, and that varied with the aperture and ISO set by the user. This l;ooks like what used to be a $39 cheapie flash, from Crown or another pseudo-generic brand. The low-priced ones offered Manual power, and only a single AUTO- f/stop, while the better ones had two AUTO- f/stop options.

You did realize you replied to a seven year-old zombie thread, right?
 
LOL No, I had no idea the thread was old. I wonder how I ever saw it? I did not notice, it was just here at the top with the rest.

OK, so maybe the flash was 8 years less old than I thought it was. :)
 
I think the batteries are dead by now. If after eight years it's still going weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee and the light still hasn't come on, it's faulty.
 
WayneF said:
LOL No, I had no idea the thread was old. I wonder how I ever saw it? I did not notice, it was just here at the top with the rest.

OK, so maybe the flash was 8 years less old than I thought it was. :)

My guess is a spammer dug this thread up, and it made it to page one of Active Topics, and you replied to the thread, riiiiight about the same time that one of the moderators sent the spammer to Eternal X-Synch Hades...

...either that, or you were replying to search results you had made, in order to apply your substantial wealth of flash knowledge to queries other people might have left here!
 
..riiiiight about the same time that one of the moderators sent the spammer to Eternal X-Synch Hades...

...either that, or you were replying to search results you had made, in order to apply your substantial wealth of flash knowledge to queries other people might have left here!

There I was, happy as a sandboy shooting jpeg until I browsed Wayne's site. Now I wouldn't dare..or try to offer any feeble excuses.
 

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