paulo_fonseca1

<p>and if you allow me to add, at the risk of being foolish, as it often happens when one pronounces himself about things he doesn't fully understand, i'm new to photography but i feel that, although there might be some "academic" procedures for certain things, there's also a great deal of flexibility around them. and it's better that way because that's what allows people to express their personal approach and creativity. the procedure you developed seems fine to me as an amateur, but it may not apply depending on the effect you want to achieve. for instance, you want a spotlight effect, you might want to adjust the zoom and power of the flash manually instead of relying on ettl. so, to conclude, i think we're perhaps better off with no science here :-) knowing the rules is fine, but using the equipment until we've developed an intuition so we can do what we have to achieve what we want without having to think much about it is what we should pursue. </p>

<p>hi. i don't know if you are a scientist, but assuming you are not, i think you'd be surprised to know how much of science consists of trial and error :-))))<br /> concerning your last question, as to my understanding, that's in general what happens. the amount of light necessary to a correct exposure is calculated immediately before the real shot via a pre-flash. however, whereas this principle seems clear to me as far as aperture and iso go, i am less sure that shutter speed is counter-balanced the same way.</p>

<p>i had to make the same choice a few days ago, and decided to bite the bullet and go for the big one. i haven't used it much but so far i couldn't be more satisfied.<br>

you might want to check niel van niekerk's site http://neilvn.com/tangents/, which contains invaluable information about flash photography. in particular, here's what he says about the choice of the flashgun: http://neilvn.com/tangents/flash-photography-techniques/which-flashgun/.<br>

that said, the 430 seems to be a perfectly capable flash with many happy owners. the one thing that really bugs me and that i have never understood is why, if they could chose just one sense, they decided to let it rotate 180degrees to the left and not to the right... finally, if you don't care going offbrand, there's also the nissin di866 which has received some good reviews.<br>

good luck</p>

 

<p>it took me some time to understand the power of this feature, but now i think i can no longer live without it. i would promptly exchange those (for me worthless) full auto and creative auto modes for c4 and c5 :-) <br>

i do mostly casual (family, travel) shooting with the 18-135 lens and the settings that i need to change more often and that i find hard to adjust are the autofocus area and mode, as well as the drive mode. therefore, if i remember well, i usually have the following settings.<br>

c1) "action" (i.e. moving kids) - Av, auto af point selection (ocasionally zone), ai servo, hi-speed continuous shooting, stopped down 1ev, customised standard picture style (+1 saturation)<br>

c2) "portraits" - Av, manual single point af, one-shot, single shooting, stopped down 1ev,<br />customised portrait picture style (+1 saturation). pre-selected af points are different for horizontal and vertical orientation and roughly correspond to the top-left points of the 4/3 "rule".<br>

c3) "scenery" - Av, auto af point selection, one-shot, single shooting, f8, customised landscape picture style (+1 sharpening, +1 saturation).<br>

when i first get to the place, i change and store settings for the wb accordingly. in strong daylight, i often dial and store -1/3 or -2/3 ec.<br>

(sorry, too verbose, 1st post :-))</p>