TTL vs. Dumbfire with off-camera flash

<p>I recently purchased the new Pocketwizard Mini TT1 and Flex TT5.</p>

<p>One of the things that I see many photographers saying is, "I prefer manual flash because you get consistent light." I can see where this makes sense, especially in a situation where you are lighting a room or lighting for formals. I have been using Cybersyncs for years myself. Set the manual lighting correctly and it nevar changes as you move groups into the shot or light the reception hall.</p>

<p>Just last week I was shooting a seminar and I placed my strobe in the back of the room with a narrow beam so that it went over the heads of the crowd but still lit the speaker. Than I positioned myself to the side and shot the speaker with great 45 degree light. The second speaker was dressed in black and suddenly the flash was too hot so I had to adjust it. At the time, I thought, "This wouldn't happen with manual flash. This is a good example of where TTL off-camera is a hindrance."</p>

<p>But, then I thought, "Wait a minute. If I was shooting with on-camera flash I would have the same problem. Yet, I don't switch my on-camera flash to manual...."</p>

<p>Here's my question (and I do have one): If we shoot with TTL all the time on camera, why is it suddenly a huge burden when applied off-camera? While it's true that I had to adjust the flash when the person in black stepped up, it was no more than I would have done with on-camera flash. Furthermore, because it was TTL, I was able to set up my light and just walk away to the other side of the room (no test shots, no fine-tuning or doing the math..). </p>

<p>I'm beginning to think that the key to embracing off-camera TTL is to think of it as on-camera TTL. If you think of it as just bounce flash from any direction, it's much more intuitive to use (if you are a good bounce flash photographer).</p>

<p>Do you think that TTL off-camera flash can be just as valuable is manual? Is it simply situational or would you apply it to everything, including formals?</p>

<p>If my description of the shoot is confusing I'll be happy to post a shot.</p>

<p> </p>

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<p>Do you think that TTL off-camera flash can be just as valuable is manual? Is it simply situational or would you apply it to everything, including formals?</p>

 

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<p>Overall, I suppose people should just do whatever works for them. TTL vs manual isn't all that different than shooting the camera in say aperture priority vs. manual: it's simply who is making the decisions, the camera or you. The largest issue I have had with off camera flash isn't whether it is TTL or manual, it is the ability to <em>control</em> the OCF from the camera. In terms of using OCF in TTL or manual, I suppose I would say I much prefer manual for the reason you pointed out: it is more consistent. No matter how you slice and dice it, TTL is a reflective reading and it can be fooled. In manual, output is consistent regardless of the reflectivity within the scene. I often use TTL on camera because my <em>distances</em> are changing, hence the flash output needs to change. But when using OCF, the distances are usually constant, hence the flash output can remain constant. </p>

<p>I think that, for now, I'll be using manual for formals and room lighting but TTL for everything else.</p>

<p>BTW - the TTL remotes can be adjusted from the camera. Since it's TTL, any flash compensation that you make in camera is relayed to the flash. The only thing they don't do is three zone ratio control. They always treat the OCF as one zone, regardless of how many you are using. This is the one thing that Canon's infrared system can do that the PW's can't.</p>

<p>For me, the TTL is very valuable since I use OCF a lot on location. Recently I was shooting an E-session and the girl was in the forefront with the guy in back and a shallow dof. he was wearing a hat and so his face was a little too dark. I grabbed my light stand and placed it so it would hit him and not her. It put perfect fill light on him without me having to set a thing. That was a big "a-ha" moment for me in terms of how versatile these remotes can be.</p>

<p>I say whatever works for you. I like manual off camera for the same reasons as John D. I don't particularly like ETTL on camera and don't like it off camera either. Even though you can comp it from the camera, every time your scene changes it changes, and you are back to square one. I have an inelegant way of comping my manual off camera flash. I am close anyway, from the beginning, using my old fashioned cheat sheet pasted to the flash. Then, I just change a setting--ISO or aperture or shutter speed, since I'm usually off by thirds of a stop anyway. The on camera flash is in ETTL, used as fill, and it hardly matters if it is off a bit from the changing scene. It is just faster for me because I'm used to it.</p>

<p>Booray, I don't understand why the guy's black suit made the flash suddenly too hot, unless you opened up a stop or two to compensate for the suit. If the prior speaker was dark-skinned, and the black-suited speaker was lighter-skinned, then the "too hot" problem would make a bit more sense to me. But if I'm principally concerned about exposure on the speaker's face, I would expect the exposure to remain correct from one speaker to the next, so long as they didn't get closer to the flash, skin color was similar, and the flash continued to fire at the same power and zoom. Can you explain?</p>

<p>I use Cybersyncs for off-camera flash as well. The main reason I'm interested in triggers that support iTTL is to get high-speed shutter sync for better control of ambient, especially to avoid blowing out the sky. Most of the time I think I would still use the triggers in manual mode, though.</p>

<p>Ian - With manual flash, there would be no problem. With TTL flash, the camera is reading the exposure and adjusting the flash power for every shot. When the second speaker steps up in a black suit, the camera reads the scene as darker and increases the flash. While it's true that the suit is darker, the persons face is not and so you get an overexposed face.</p>

<p>Keep in mind that I was shooting full/half length so the clothes were a major part of the frame. Had I been shooting close-ups, the faces would have filled the frame more and the clothing color would have been less of a factor.</p>

<p>By the way, this is the same reason that I use center-weighted averaging for my meter mode and not evaluative. In evaluative mode, the focus point is given more "weight" when figuring exposure. That can be a problem at a wedding when one shot focuses on the dark suited groom and the next on the white dressed bride. I discovered this the hard way when shooting cake-cutting pictures. I wrote a post about it on my blog. It includes test shots that show how a small change of the focus point from a light spot to dark can move the exposure a stop or more. Just google my name if you want to read it. (not allowed to post links here)</p>

<p>As for the high-speed sync (called Hyper-Sync by PW), I can tell you that it works like a charm. I live in Tampa so bright sunlight is a fact of life for us. I can now shoot with off-camera flash as fast as 1/2000 of a second (maybe faster, I just haven't tried to configure it that high.)</p>

<p>Duh. [slaps forehead] Sorry -- I completely misread your original post, Booray, and thought you were saying you got the too-hot result in manual -- the result makes perfect sense if you were in ETTL. </p>

<p>Now I'm just drumming my fingers waiting for PW to finish the Nikon version. </p>

<p>Speaking of "duh" moments.... yesterday while shooting a Senior Session with the new triggers, I pulled out my Lumopro flash to use as a kicker light. It took me about 5 frames of head scratching to realize that I wasn't seeing the kicker in the shot because it was firing early... when it saw the TTL pre-flash (it's an optical slave).</p>

<p>So, I switched out for my manual triggers and spent 10 minutes re-configuring to get the shot.</p>

<p>When I got home I checked the Lumopro manual and discovered that all I had to do was flip a switch on the flash to make it ignore the pre-flash. DUH!</p>

<p>Booray, just a heads up on the pre-flashes. Depending on the light levels and how many flashes you have there might be more than one pre-flash.</p>

<p>I haven't played with the new TTL system being a nikon shooter but I think you can use a regular Plus2 PW to trigger the Lumopro flash in concert with the TTL stuff. Or perhaps you need a flex unit for this.</p>

<p>Anyway it might be good to have two flex trancievers for backup. A flex would work as a backup for the mini transmitter as well.</p>

 

<p>My problem is that I have two systems that aren't compatable (sp?). The PW will fire the one receiver I have and my Cybersyncs will fire the two I have for it. So, if I want to fire two flashes by radio I have to switch to the cybersyncs. If I wanted to fire three I would have to use both systems at the same time (which is two much "stuff"). So, the optical slave gives me two with the PW or three with the CS, whichever I need.</p>

<p>You're right that regular PW receivers will work with the MiniTT1 but I'm not about to shell out for that when I still have the Cybersynchs.</p>

<p>" If we shoot with TTL all the time on camera, why is it suddenly a huge burden when applied off-camera? "</p>

<p>Perhaps because it is increasingly rare ( ? ) to use only one flash in a situation where the flash is off camera and besides ettl is already a can of worms ( i pretty much use FEL with it so i know what its at ) <br /> I dont shoot off camera ettl beyond the odd time with the ST-E2 ( which gets used less and less these days ) or a long ettl cable and I am a student but it just seemed messy to me especially if I had more than one light in the equation. I envisage it being easy to lose contol of what is happening especially<em> if more than one of those off camera flashes is ettl</em> , but that is a hypothesis not based on experience. If it just one flash in the whole exposure then i guess its different since you can force the flash using FEL to fire the way you can predict. I only use of camera manual now and adjust the apperture based on the subject distance. However for quick moving scenes where perhaps the flash is also moving on a monopod or something I can see the benefits because you can react quicker and chimp less.</p>

<p>Booray i read your posts on the pocket wizards, it sounds like you are not convinced on their merit just yet with the triggering and interferance problems. Is this a case of trying to find value in your investment? What happens when you introduce more than one flash into the equation ?With an OCF via the Pocket wizards how is ETTL measured particularily if your OCF is not pointed at the general region of the focus point? I say this because I had the impression that the flash wasnt nailing exposure like you might have liked.. are you having to use FEC a lot and have you encountered situations where you needed more of an adjustment than the FEC would give you. Is the flash to subject distance used to calculate the power needed or is the camera telling the flash what to use having communicated via the pocket wizard.. in which case is the camera prone to give the flash the wrong power setting? Im not very clear on the value of of pocket wizards except in the circumstance where the OCF is pointed at the subject from somewhere left or right of the camera and where there is at most one other flash in the equation. When more than one flash is used I feel from reading your posts it becomes very random indeed. I think the best thing somebody could do for me is sell a manual flash that I could adjust with a remote on the camera. </p>

<p>Great questions John.</p>

<p>When using more than one OCF, both flashes are treated as one for the purpose of exposure. With Canon's IF system you can modulate 3 or 4 flashes from the OC flash. With the PW, all OCF are treated as one by the Canon system. So, if I was using more than one OCF, I would set them to manual. The truth is, I don't use more than one very often and when I do the second is usually an optical slave.</p>

<p>I think the ETTL is measured the same regardless of where the flash is aimed, much as it is when using bounce flash. Flash to sublect distamce is not needed as the ETTL is calculated off the pre-flash. This is, in fact, one of the things I like about the PWs. I can move my OCF around at will without having to change the power settings. However, the flash zoom is manual.</p>

<p>It's a love/hate relationship with these remotes. I shot a Senior Session last week in multiple locations and light that went much faster because I was able to let the ETTL do the math for me with an occasional FEC by me. Sunday I shot family portraits at the beach and the exposure seemed to jump all over the place. Looking back at the images though, the exposure wasn't really moving as much as I thought so I chalked it up to the difficulty of reading your LCD in bright light.</p>

<p>I'm definitily trying to find value in the investment (I'm a second-guesser by nature). There is no doubt that in most situations it is much faster than manual. For example, last week I was shooting headshots for a bartending company (in a bar). My manual steps would have been:<br>

1. Set the camera for ambient. When I do this I try to set at 800 ISO and 5.6 because I know that my flash at 1/8 through an umbrella from 4 feet is about right at that setting. If I can't get that setting, I then have to "do the math" do figure out my new manual flash setting.<br>

2. Set the flash position. If the flash position is different than my default than it's more math.<br>

3. Test shot and re-adjust the flash power.</p>

<p>With the PWs my steps were:</p>

<p>1. Set up the flash. Expose for the ambient and shoot. When I wanted to move my light for a group shot, I just moved it. When I wanted to drop my aperture to 2.8 for a detail shot, I just dropped it. The ETTL adjusted the flash for me.</p>

<p>I've attached the first shot I took. I set up the flash, took one test shot (PW's require this) and then took the attached image. Never touched my flash settings.</p>

<p>For me, the value comes from several sources. First, I like that I don't have to do any math with my initial setup. Second, I like that I can move the OCF at will and not have to re-figure the flash power. Third, I like that I can adjust the FEC from the camera which leaves me more freedom to put my flash in out-of-the-way spots.</p>

<p><img src="http://boolog.com/web/Booray%20Perry%20Photography" alt="" width="400" height="600" /></p>

 

<p>hey Booray - I know many people who love ETTL - I have never been able to get it to work for me... I use manual flash - depending on the situation will depend on the power... I want consistant power from that flash because then I can control it and work with my camera setting to adjust accordingly knowing my out put OCF is the same. </p>

<p>Are you talking about studio-style photography or run-and-gun weddings? Surely you don't use manual flash on-camera?</p>