Fill flash with Canon flashes

[photoneophyte]

I have the canon eos elan7e and I am thinking about buying a 420ex

speedlight, or whatever the corresponding flash is. I am just

wondering how I would set the flash, the speedlight, or the built in

one on the camera, to fill in say, the face of a runner who has his

back to the sun. Basically, How do I get a decent fill flash,

without that annoying washed-out, overexposed, flat, ghost white face?

Thanks for any advice/comments.

Pete

[jay_.]

I am decidedly not a fan of so-called "auto balanced daylight fill-flash" which I consider the flash equivalent of "P" mode. I prefer to set my own fill ratios depending on the circumstances. A -1.7 stop compensation is a good starting point and in fact that's what I mostly use, altering it slightly depending on subejct tonality. I use a Metz flash (either the 40Mz3i or 54MZ3 which are the only ones that perform "E-TTL" BTW)and the compensation is easily set with analog controls on the SCA module...which I prefer to having to scroll through a menu on the LCD screen. On the EOS 1n and 1v compensation can be done from the camera body, which permits any TTL flash to do user-balanced fill.

[Ken Katz]

With the Elan 7, your stuck with auto fill reduction (no CF to turn it off).

 

The auto fill system works quit well with a speedlight or the built in flash. Use any mode (M, Av, Tv, P) with the flash, but the range with with built-in flash is very limited (like 5 feet) outdoors. I sometimes add +1/2 to +1 FEC for heavily backlight photos (to override some of the auto reduction).

 

This is must reading for EOS users: http://photonotes.org/articles/eos-flash/

[bill_goldman]

I find that the auto fill-flash reduction program works very well, resulting in very natural (not washed out) looking pictures. However, I think you will be happier with the 420EX than with the built-in flash on your Elan 7e as I believe the built-in flash operates in TTL mode whereas the 420EX operates in E-TTL mode. E-TTL is much better at balancing the background with the main subject which results in better, more natural looking flash pictures.

 

The built-in program only fails in very extreme cases, such as a subject almost in silhouette against a setting sun, in which case you can add a negative fec value.

[victor_kunkel1]

I'm not sure that this will help because i use a IIe. But for fill flash I set exposure compensation to be one stop or one half stop stronger than ambient light making the flash either the flash on the body or my assecory the key light. I do this by typically dropping exposure compensation for ambient light, or making the flash commensurately brighter than ambient light, and then bracketing. Hope this helps, it works pretty well for me....

[daniel flather]

<I>How do I get a decent fill flash, without that annoying washed-out, overexposed, flat, ghost white face? </i><P>

Another person judging exposure by looking at his prints.

[giovanni_verago]

"With the Elan 7, your stuck with auto fill reduction (no CF to turn it off)".

 

Kenneth this isn't exactly true! I'm an Eos30 (Elan 7e) owner and I use flash lighting all the time for macro work (220 ex on kirk flash bracket). The only way to disable the Automatic Fill Flash Reduction algorithm is to use the camera in Manual mode not in P, AV, or TV.

That way, the camera will turn off the AFFRA and the flash will fire as main light. I'm sure the 420EX will work in the same manner. Giovanni