About Canon 550ex as fill flash

I have a quit dumb question

Fill flash means exactly what?

With manual flashes fill flash can be set and with auto flashed, can't?

I'm quite a little confused about this..

I have a 420ex flash

 

 

thank you very much for the previous answers :)

Fill means filling in the scene with a little addition light from the flash unit. In other

words the flash unit is not the primary source of light for the photograph. Your flash

will automatically be in fill flash mode if you're using it when it's reasonably bright -

like a sunny day, for example.

<P>

<A HREF="http://photonotes.org/articles/eos-flash/">http://photonotes.org/

articles/eos-flash/</A>

ETTL shoule (I say SHOULD) give you perfect fill flash but my 550 actually provides just a bit too much fill, to the point that it is obvious. That is to say, it ain't subtle.

I have an EOS 3 and a 420EX and I agree with Walter. The fill flash is a little too bright, even though I center the subject and use FEL to get an ETTL reading before recomposing and shooting. I usually dial down the FE compensation a half stop. But then again, I usually shoot slide film where I prefer slight underexposure, so perhaps my eyes aren't well calibrated ;-)

You are not alone, Jim. I'm using 550EX on my EOS30. Under AV mode I usually set the FE compensation down one full stop and still find it unnaturally bright in some of my fill flash shots (one can easily tell that flash has been used and some details on the face have been lost). I guess Canon has deliberately increased the flash output in its factory settings but not sure of the exact reason. Quite sure that I have checked the flash range before I press the shutter, so the possibility of shooting things out of its range can be ruled out.