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Digital Fill-Flash Overexposure Test Update


todd frederick

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Review:

 

Last Sunday, Easter Sunday, I photographed a wedding using 90% film

photography. Trying to learn some digital techniques, I took some

side-shots with an Olympus E-10 with an FL-40 off camera flash in TTL

mode. Only a very few of the digital results were very very

overexposed with the digital and I don't know why...no consistency.

 

I ran a test:

 

On my back porch, I have a small refrigerator. I put my Tuxedo coat

on the frig and topped it off with a straw hat. The background was a

neutral gray wall.

 

I took three sets of images:

 

Set 1: straight flash at 0, -1, -2 flash compensation.

 

Set 2: frontal flash with an omni-bounce flash diffusior pointed

straight at the subject at 0, -1, -2 flash compensation.

 

Set 3: flash head at 45* up with the omini-bounce flash diffusor at

0. -1.-2 flash compensation.

 

Guess what? ***Absolutely not difference between exposure #1 and

#9***and all exposures were very acceptable!

 

Exposure # 1 is posted here, and #2 below.

 

I don't have a clue!

 

I don't really expect any solutions. Just thought I'd let you know

the results.

 

I'll post my "problem print" down below as #3.<div>0081MT-17637184.JPG.bf30324bcd5af20f0789ef2d7698b2e0.JPG</div>

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...unless you just shoot only groom images, you need to add the 'white' of a wedding dress for your test to give you a 'true' set of results.

 

 

 

At the wedding, you had out-door lighting: you used a covered place for your tests. Were the lighting conditions about the same for the wedding and your test?

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This is the actual photo which caused the overexposure probem at the wedding.

 

All settings were set at 0 flash compensation, the flash was straight on the subject, with no diffusion, like test photo #1 above. The only difference was the distance: the samples above were about 10 feet from the test subject and this actual wedding photo was about 15 feet from the subject.

 

I don't have a clue.

 

All my Nikon film TTL balanced Fill Flash photos are perfect.<div>0081Mz-17637684.JPG.48d562e310b7712ecb5fb1d48826dd07.JPG</div>

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Todd, is your "bride" refrigerator a white one? In your images the fridge looks more like gray and therefore seems to be underexposed. Last Sunday, I was shooting with Todd in the same wedding and my D100's TTL with SB-80DX set at -2 didn't have any serious problems with exposure. I did have some problems with the bridal gown but people's faces were mostly well exposed.

 

I don't think this is a film vs. digital issue. Modern Nikon SLRs and DSLRs (and presumably Canon too) probably have a better TTL system than what is in the Olympus E-10.

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Don't you think that you should try the black & white together??? The system is designed to automatically adjust exposure, and black would be a tad different from white. I think the goal is to have it average the exposure so the black & the white in the same frame are both acceptable.
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The refrigerator is pure white, and the exposure system moved it toward neutral gray. Other photos taken at the wedding with flash outdoors, especially those of the children who were dressed in a more neutral tone, were correctly exposed. It could be the E-10 TTL system as Shun mentioned. I had a similar problem a few weeks earlier using the on-canera flash as fill on an overcast day at the beach taking a fill photo of a friend. It was very overexposed. An identical photo taken with my C-5050 on that day was perfect with the on camera flash. Eventually I may move to a more contemporary digital, but the E-10 was a bargain and works great in 90% plus situations. I'm more confortable with film anyway.

 

By the way, I had no problem with fill flash when taking photos of the couple a week earlier for a reception display photo under a tree in open shade on a bright sunny day using the E-10 flash combo. Strange.

 

The bride is a very close friend and I photographed the wedding for cost only as a wedding gift. She took the film, had it processed, and said they are "great." I asked her to send me a few samples, and when I get those I'll do a comparison.

 

I thought about doing a side-by-side test, Tux and gown, but good balanced TTL fill should work correctly in all situations.

 

I think Shun is correct: the TTL in the E-10 is not as advanced as in current systems, and I won't use it for such unless I take some test shots and make adjustments.

 

Isn't it strange that a 3 year old camera is considered vintage and obsolete, but a 50 year old Leica is a "joy forever!?" I enjoy it anyway.

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Please understand that this thread is only informational. I need to play with the system more to get a better feel for what it can and cannot do.

 

Attached is a digital photo at the same wedding taken only a few minutes before the other overexposed samples. You can see a flash-back from the glasses of the lady on the far right. I am also attaching a sample of one with the children in a posting below this taken with fill. Evidently it does work Ok under certain circumstances. The photos I took without fill-flash were very dark and brooding, so the fill helped.<div>0081hr-17643384.JPG.11dd786b2b010902df180eeda60cbfaf.JPG</div>

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Wedding Picnic: Girl with Dog E-10 plus Fill-flash.

 

Again, I don't want to make too much out of this. The ONLY photos where I had an extreme overexposure were those of a few of the groomsmen photos. some were fine. All the rest of the digitals were acceptable.

 

A local friend suggested that perhaps the flash, in some of the photos, was hitting the hillside and trying to expose for that, whus overexposing the people in the foreground...is that a possiblity?<div>0081iJ-17643484.jpg.7d0508e9ec1227eba3cecc04238b0fcb.jpg</div>

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Todd, I think the problem is in the meter of the Olympus E-10. It seems to be a fairly basic meter and tries to trun things into gray. It must have been fools by the large black areas in the tux of the groom and attempts to turn that into gray, thus over-exposing that entire image.

 

Compare the images of the fridge itself and the one with the black jacket around it. The background is considerably darker in the image with the fridge; again, its tries to turn the white fridge into gray, thus under-exposing everything.

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