jean_marc_liotier

Faced with an underexposure problem I discovered the wonders of FEL.

But while FEL does help getting accurate flash exposure, I find it

very awkward. I use the focus-recompose-shoot method all the time, and

adding the '*' step to the dance to activate FEL just about makes it

too much to my taste.

 

From that experience and ergonomical improvement idea srpung to my

mind : shouldn't it be possible to link the FEL to pushing the shutter

button halfway ? That way, followers of the focus-recompose-shoot way

would automatically get FEL every time. Of course, that would be a

user selectable option, but wouldn't it make life much more simpler

for the likes of me ? Has anybody else already suggested that ?

> pushing the tiny and out-of the way FEL button before each shot seems very</br>

> cumbersome to me : I usually don't have a spare finger around where it is placed.</br>

</p>

Now that I think about it, this looks like an ergonomic puzzle to me : shouldn't it be possible to link the FEL to pushing the shutter button halfway ? That way, followers of the focus-recompose-shoot way would automatically get FEL every time. Of course, that would be a user selectable option, but wouldn't it make life much more simpler for the likes of me ? Has anybody else already suggested that ?

<p>

Steve Dunn, aug 22, 2004; 11:23 p.m. said :</br>

> I do have one question for you, though - you're not doing the </br>

> focus-recompose-shoot dance, are you? Or, if you are, you're using </br>

> FEL, right? E-TTL metering is linked to the selected AF point, but </br>

> since flash metering takes place a split-second before exposure, not</br>

> at the time you pick the AF point, recomposing means you're telling </br>

> the flash system to meter off something other than your subject.</br>

<p>Now that you mention FEL and focus-recompose-shoot, I feel a bit silly : focus-recompose-shoot is what I do all the time and I never tried FEL... From what I have just read it seems that FEL may well be the solution to my exposure problems. That said, pushing the tiny and out-of the way FEL button before each shot seems very cumbersome to me : I usually don't have a spare finger around where it is placed.</p>

 

<p>Apart from that, I have to mention that when using ceiling bounces I have had excellent and predictable results by using plain TTL instead of E-TTL.</p>

I shoot with a Drebel and a 380EX and I have noticed consistent underexposure in badly lit indoors. I have achieved relatively good results by compensating by two thirds of a stop... Just don't forget to remove the compensation when you exit the church...

 

That said, I'm still not happy with my results and I have to process my pictures in Gimp to adjust the levels. It has partly something to do with my lacking ability to get the camera to focus and meter on the correct point - really a bitch in low light or with dancing people, but I suspect that my inconsistent exposures also have something to do with my hardware. I guess I'll borrow somebody's 550EX and see if that improves anything - and with the 580EX out, the 550EX may even soon become more afordable.

I really appreciate <a href="http://gallery.menalto.com">Gallery</a>. It scales with no problems into the thousands of pictures and contains all the functionnality you need and probably more. On top of that the conversions are performed using Imagemagick, jhead, jpegtrans and other well known excellent programs. It is free, you just need an Apache webserver with PHP4 (both free of course).