Manual Settings with FLASH?! HELP!

[j.e.t]

OK, this may sound like a dumb question to the more seasoned professionals

out there, but how do you know what the correct aperture and shutter speed

settings are when you are shooting in manual with flash? I use a 10D and

550EX or Metz54 and am struggling with this. When I am indoors, say at a

reception, how do I know what to shoot at? And similarly for outdoor shots

too? Are you always looking at the internal exposure meter to make sure that

it is at 0 to allow for correct exposure?

 

When I tried testing it out a bit, I noticed that I was shooting at say 1/60 at f2.8

and my friend was shooting at 1/125 at f6.7 and there wasn't much difference!

I don't get it. I usually use the Av mode, because it sets the rest automatically,

but I'd like to learn how to use M mode efficiently. If I am indoors at a

reception and I would like to get a little movement, is it best to leave the

aperture wide open and then adjust the shutter speed to 1/15th or so? And

for the same shot, would it still be exposed if I left the aperture at 2.8 but shot

at 1/60th (just less blur?) Similarly, inside of a church, what if there is very

little light to work with, which setting takes precedence? Do you just leave the

aperture wide open and just adjust the shutter speed depending on what

effect you want?

 

Maybe it is just something that I'll intuitively have to learn and get a feel for -

but if any of you pros out there have tips and tricks to help the learning curve, I

would REALLY appreciate it!!!

 

Thank you!

[ellis_vener_photography]

well in manual mode you can use the flash-to-subject distance scale on the camera,

which depends on know ingthe ISO your camera is set to. Shutter speed has -- 99% of

the time -- virtually no impact on the flash exposure, though it may affect the level of

ambient light recorded. Flash exposure level is directly tied to aperture chosen.

[maureen_m]

Manual mode on the camera is not the same as Manual mode on the flash. It sounds like you set the camera to Manual but left the flash in ETTL. In that case both you and your friend (assuming he also used Manual camera mode and ETTL flash mode) would get similar results with different shutter/aperture combinations since ETTL will give the proper amount of flash based on whatever camera settings are used within the specs of the camera's sync speed and the flash's power.<p>The camera's meter scale is only showing the ambient light without taking flash into consideration, so the "0" won't be any help for flash metering (the only time the meter scale shows anything about flash is when it is used while setting the amount of Flash Exposure Compensation - but this scale is not shown while actually metering the shot).<p>Setting the shutter slower than sync speed will give you control over the background exposure, keeping it from going black behind the subject, but the aperture determines the flash exposure and DOF. If you want to show blurred movement, using a slow sync speed along with 2nd curtain sync will fire the flash at the end of the exposure so the blur leads up to the sharp flashlit subject instead of the blur showing the subject's movement after the flash fires.<p>If you want to use Manual mode flash, you will need to set both your camera and flash to Manual, and calculate settings with Guide Number formulas or a flashmeter. It is not possible to meter manual flash with the camera's metering system, although you could use the histograms on a series of test shots to come up with some basic settings to use.<p>There is lots of great Canon EOS flash info at <a href="http://photonotes.org/articles/eos-flash/">http://photonotes.org/articles/eos-flash/</a>.