Some help on the settings please

[PavementPilot]

Why do people get technical over images like this? Nothing saves this picture. Period. The exposure could have been perfection and still would not save this. It's not even a good snapshot. If I lived to be a million years old I would never post an image like this and ask for help. It's a Before, Jenny Craig, image, while the OP bumps his thread.
There I said it. Shoot me.

The question has nothing to do with overweight, or even if it is a good snapshot or not. I wasnt even trying to save the picture, I was trying to understand what I did, so I dont do it again.

 

[PavementPilot]

It looks to me, like what happened is that the camera metered to expose on the woman. Most likely because he had it set to spot or center weighted metering. Getting proper exposure on her gave him an overexposed background. And since it's white, it blew out. Was that really that hard to diagnose?

To the OP: Change your camera to matrix metering mode and you should be all set. Nikon's meters are pretty good, and if set properly for the situation, are usually very close to perfect exposure.

Right you are, I was on center-weighted metering. I have been playing with 3D metering after I took this and posted. I will try some Matrix tomorrow. Thanks for the diagnosis.

 

[LightSpeed]

How about trial and error? Ever try that before you come to a forum. The best way to learn how to do this sh** is to play with it. You have the camera, you have the manual and the working capacity to push a button. Instead you bump your post up. The image is horrible. Plain and simple. Your question is stupid. Why? Because you didn't consult the manual, you didn't test your efforts and you posted some stupid snapshot that I am sure I'm not the only one laughing at. These people are nice, they will try to help you. I'm nice and will try to help you but not on some attention grabbing silly post you could have answered your own question with. I apologize for coming across as an ass. This must be hard for you to read.

 

[Chamelion 6]

How about trial and error? Ever try that before you come to a forum. The best way to learn how to do this sh** is to play with it. You have the camera, you have the manual and the working capacity to push a button. Instead you bump your post up. The image is horrible. Plain and simple. Your question is stupid. Why? Because you didn't consult the manual, you didn't test your efforts and you posted some stupid snapshot that I am sure I'm not the only one laughing at. These people are nice, they will try to help you. I'm nice and will try to help you but not on some attention grabbing silly post you could have answered your own question with. I apologize for coming across as an ass. This must be hard for you to read.

No need to apologize for the obivious....

This place is incredable sometimes :lmao:

I think I'm just gonna take my ignert, yep, I said ig-nert, self and see if thars any bood-war pics up in that other thread....

:thumbup:

 

[sobolik]

Assuming the camera was set to rear curtain flash at all... That's why we need to know what he used and how he shot it. At least on canons you cannot do a rear curtain flash with the pop up. Likewise in many Auto modes it won't do it. So even if it was set to rear curtain and the mode changed or the flash unit removed there's a good chance this was just a normal flash exposure.

Unless Nikons are very different than Canons. This doesn't look like a rear curtain flash exposure...

nikons do allow rear curtain with the pop up flash. At least my D40 does.

And you clearly don't know what you are talking about. Not trying to rude, but if there is nothing moving in the frame, than normal and rear curtain flash will give the EXACT same results, given the same exposure settings

It looks to me, like what happened is that the camera metered to expose on the woman. Most likely because he had it set to spot or center weighted metering. Getting proper exposure on her gave him an overexposed background. And since it's white, it blew out. Was that really that hard to diagnose?

To the OP: Change your camera to matrix metering mode and you should be all set. Nikon's meters are pretty good, and if set properly for the situation, are usually very close to perfect exposure.

WRONG = "And you clearly don't know what you are talking about. Not trying to rude, but if there is nothing moving in the frame, than normal and rear curtain flash will give the EXACT same results, given the same exposure settings"

Rear curtain flash does not produce in any way shape or for the same exact setting of normal flash. Normal flash does not expose for a scenes ambient lighting and then fire the flash anyway. Normal flash auto exposure settings ignore ambient lighting.

Try it and quit proclaiming ""And you clearly don't know what you are talking about. " It's not that hard to prove or disprove.

I can set my camera to "rear curtain flash" and "bulb" (I just did, see note about trying above)

Walk away for 3 minutes

Return and release the shutter and the flash will fire.

Everything in the exposure will be horribly overexposed. In the OP sample photo asking what happened - only the left fridge and wall were overexposed due to a slight over exposure in those areas (not 3 minutes as in my test scenario)

Try it It's not that hard to prove or disprove.

 

[Robin Usagani]

Can someone explain to me how you can do TTL on rear curtain? Wouldnt the preflash be on the exposure?? Or does it fire before the exposure? I guess I can go try it right now but my camera is all packed for a photoshoot in a couple of hours.

 

[Chamelion 6]

Can someone explain to me how you can do TTL on rear curtain? Wouldnt the preflash be on the exposure?? Or does it fire before the exposure? I guess I can go try it right now but my camera is all packed for a photoshoot in a couple of hours.

I dunno... Earlier in this thread I posted a B&W of a building and bus. The flash clearly fired on front curtain, but the camera is set to rear. I see no evidence that the preflash affected the shot...

I can only assume that when I changed some of the flash settings it went into a mode incompatible with rear curtain...

I'm gonna spend some time reading up on it today.

 

[sobolik]

Can someone explain to me how you can do TTL on rear curtain? Wouldnt the preflash be on the exposure?? Or does it fire before the exposure? I guess I can go try it right now but my camera is all packed for a photoshoot in a couple of hours.

TTL is a way of turning OFF THE FLASH when enough light has passed T-through T-the L-lens. It does not care when the curtain opens or closes Nor does it care if you have already taken a 6 second exposure. When the curtain closes and the rear curtain setting fires the flash as rear curtain instructs it to do the flash will emit light necessary to properly expose at that instant. It does not care about anything except that instant.

TTL does not care what your timing settings are in terms of shutter behavior. Only the instantaneous measurement of light being enough. In a sense it is a totally irrelevant factor to even mention when discussing rear curtain flash. Any method of flash control could be used. It is like discussing auto focus or manual focus in the same sentence as rear curtain flash. Yes auto focus was used for the rear curtain photograph but it is an irrelevant factor.

As for the pre flash and auto focus light as well would have been small and insignificant in the final analysis.

"Digital TTL works as follows: Before the actual exposure one or more small flashes, called "pre-flashes", are emitted. The light returning through the lens is measured and this value is used to calculate the amount of light necessary for the actual exposure. Multiple pre-flashes can be used to improve the flash output. Canon refers to this technique as "E-TTL" and has later improved the system with "E-TTL II". The first form of digital TTL by Nikon was called "D-TTL" and the improved variant nowadays is called "i-TTL".

When using first-curtain flash (which means the flash fires directly after the sensor is exposed),



the preflashes and main flash appear as one to the human eye, as there is very little time between them.



When using second curtain flash (the flash fires at the end of the exposure) and a slow shutterspeed, the distinction between the main flash and the preflashes is more obvious."
Through-the-lens metering - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

PS this independent not working together behavior of rear curtain flash and SLOW shutter is what allows us to get a great sunset with great family rather than a great sunset with black silhouetted outlines of family.

 

[Chamelion 6]

Can someone explain to me how you can do TTL on rear curtain? Wouldnt the preflash be on the exposure?? Or does it fire before the exposure? I guess I can go try it right now but my camera is all packed for a photoshoot in a couple of hours.

TTL is a way of turning OFF THE FLASH when enough light has passed T-through T-the L-lens. It does not care when the curtain opens or closes Nor does it care if you have already taken a 6 second exposure. When the curtain closes and the rear curtain setting fires the flash as rear curtain instructs it to do the flash will emit light necessary to properly expose at that instant. It does not care about anything except that instant.

TTL does not care what your timing settings are in terms of shutter behavior. Only the instantaneous measurement of light being enough. In a sense it is a totally irrelevant factor to even mention when discussing rear curtain flash. Any method of flash control could be used. It is like discussing auto focus or manual focus in the same sentence as rear curtain flash. Yes auto focus was used for the rear curtain photograph but it is an irrelevant factor.

As for the pre flash and auto focus light as well would have been small and insignificant in the final analysis.

"Digital TTL works as follows: Before the actual exposure one or more small flashes, called "pre-flashes", are emitted. The light returning through the lens is measured and this value is used to calculate the amount of light necessary for the actual exposure. Multiple pre-flashes can be used to improve the flash output. Canon refers to this technique as "E-TTL" and has later improved the system with "E-TTL II". The first form of digital TTL by Nikon was called "D-TTL" and the improved variant nowadays is called "i-TTL".

When using first-curtain flash (which means the flash fires directly after the sensor is exposed),



the preflashes and main flash appear as one to the human eye, as there is very little time between them.



When using second curtain flash (the flash fires at the end of the exposure) and a slow shutterspeed, the distinction between the main flash and the preflashes is more obvious."
Through-the-lens metering - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

PS this independent not working together behavior of rear curtain flash and SLOW shutter is what allows us to get a great sunset with great family rather than a great sunset with black silhouetted outlines of family.

Ok... You've pointed out part of my problem here. When people start talking about TTL, I translate that into ETTL (II) because that's all my camera supports. A bad habit here I suppose... Then again are there any modern cameras, digital anyway, that use TTL? I relate true TTL to film cameras...

But either way, the meter evaluates the preflashes before opening the shutter, so rear or front, the preflashes should not affect the image beyond providing the meter with exposure info, correct?

I use rear curtain almost exclusively, mostly for shots like my bus thing and for fill... I leave that as the default setting, but there are times the camera still fires in in front curtain. What is it that's triggers that?

 

[sobolik]

"But either way, the meter evaluates the preflashes before opening the shutter, so rear or front, the preflashes should not affect the image beyond providing the meter with exposure info, correct?"


=================

On my D90 the pre flash occurs when the shutter opens. The flash occurs when the shutter closes. Actually the flashes are occurring with the shutter open AND as they are opening. That is why if your shutter speed is too fast the photo will be half black because the shutter and flash were not synced. The pre flash can register on the sensor but it is insignificant.

To find out simply go to rear curtain, manual and bulb. There will be enough time to determine when your particular camera does the pre flash and the flash. I think they are all the same.

 

[Robin Usagani]

Ok.. so the preflashes still shoot before the shutter opens.

 

[Chamelion 6]

"But either way, the meter evaluates the preflashes before opening the shutter, so rear or front, the preflashes should not affect the image beyond providing the meter with exposure info, correct?"


=================

On my D90 the pre flash occurs when the shutter opens. The flash occurs when the shutter closes. When set to rear curtain.

To find out simply go to rear curtain, manual and bulb. There will be enough time to determine when your particular camera does the pre flash and the flash. I think they are all the same.

Ok... I'll have to play with that today. I've assumed that all exposure evaluation flashes (preflash) and the AF flash (if set up for that) happened when the button was pushed half way and the true flash was trigger right when the shutter actually opened or closed depending on which curtain was chosen... So that may not be the case then.

Thanks...

You know... my old Canon A-1 and Vivitar 283 weren't half this sophisticated, but somehow they seemed easier to predict. :er:

 

[Josh66]

Ok.. so the preflashes still shoot before the shutter opens.

Yes. On every camera I've used anyway.

It's actually really easy to test...

Just put the flash on your camera, dial in a shutter speed of 2 seconds, and see what happens.

 

[Robin Usagani]

Ya Josh.. im leaving soon.. all packed up to go. Didnt feel taking it out of the bag. Busy weekend! 3 fam pics, 2 e-sesh.

I think using TTL with rear curtain will really confuse the subject. I rather use the manual setting.

 

[Josh66]

Ok... I'll have to play with that today. I've assumed that all exposure evaluation flashes (preflash) and the AF flash (if set up for that) happened when the button was pushed half way and the true flash was trigger right when the shutter actually opened or closed depending on which curtain was chosen... So that may not be the case then.

The preflash will not fire when you half-press the shutter release.

AF assist flashes might go off, but not the preflash used to determine exposure.

That will fire just before the shutter opens, but not until you actually press the shutter release.

It all happens so fast that you might have a hard time telling that the shutter is still closed when the preflash fires (just as it's usually impossible to tell that there even is a preflash), but trust me - it is.

Having the preflash fire with the shutter open would defeat the whole purpose of having E-TTL...