Your digital TTL flash rant is on the mark. The problem is that, after
all the development effort put into TTL OTF flash control (yes, others
had it after Oly) it had to be given up with digital because of the
shiny sensor. So they resorted to measurement of a pre-flash which is
not reliable except over a fairly short distance and doesn't return
enough light in bright fill flash situations to give the camera reliable
info. With the right camera body and right lens the camera may measure
the focusing distance (ala Minolta and Canon) and compute flash exposure
that way but it's only valid for direct flash without any diffusion
modifiers. In other words, it may give you good exposure for a harshly
lit photo... maybe even with some red-eye. :-)
If you read Crockett's articles on digital TTL flash you'll see the he
recommends that TTL flash not be used at all for fill flash because of
the pre-flash brightness problem. Instead, he recommends using flash
controlled auto mode... you know, the little sensor in the "O" of
Olympus on the T-32. Nikon, and Oly too I think, have kept the auto
mode around all the time but Canon abandoned it long ago (even on film
era flashes) until just recently. The big dog Canon flash (the 580 EX
II) incorporates an auto mode sensor but getting it turned on requires
groping through the flash's menu system. Not well done.
I agree that manual fill flash can be a problem with fast action and
rapidly changing light. I guess I should try a T-32 or Vivitar 285 in
auto mode for daylight fill flash and see how it works. :-)
Chuck Norcutt
AG Schnozz wrote:
> Dr Flash wrote:
>> Dr. Flash always recommend manual flash control for best and
>> consistent results. But if you want to shoot digital TTL (and
>> especially if it's Canon TTL) then you should read every article
>> you can find on this page with TTL or fill flash in the title.
>
> May I rant? Please? How about a mini-rant? Ok, just an observation
> then.
>
> I'm at a complete loss as to what has happened with flash technology.
> Back in the near-darkages, we had the OUTSTANDING, yet limited OTF
> flash control of the OM system. Other manufacturers had their own
> version of TTL, but the OM system stood alone. However, it didn't do
> so hot with outdoor fill. Didn't really matter too much, though,
> because with the limitation of 1/60 flash-sync it made it pretty
> tough to do outdoor flash, anyway. Also, OTF did tend to over-expose
> your subject if the subject occupied too small of the picture.
> (maybe an F280 addresses that, I don't know).
>
> Olympus put one of the very best flash-exposure systems in the
> IS-series. This uses the AF system to determine camera-to-subject
> distance and sets the flash power accordingly. This is EXACTLY the
> way I work with manual flash. There were several different modes
> which you could place the camera in which automatically adjusted for
> outdoor fill, vs indoor blasting. The ESP metering made sure that
> the background was properly exposed when set on fill and the subject
> wouldn't get overpowered. If there was a flaw with this system, it
> was because the flash (G40) ran out of oomph beyond 15 feet and the
> lens wasn't bright enough to really compensate. Also, you were
> limited to direct, unmodified lighting. No bounce, no domes, no
> softboxes, etc... Of course, this system was very primative as it
> only handled the on-camera flash.
>
> Minolta must have licensed the same technology, because they put the
> same capabilities in their later film cameras, such as the D7 as well
> as the A-X line. Did it work? It worked extremely well. One thing
> you will not find is anybody seriously complaining about the Minolta
> (now Sony) flash system. There are a handful of situations where the
> Minolta system mistepped, but it's only real flaw is that it wasn't
> branded with Nikon or Canon. The world gladly passed it by in the
> mad rush towards megapixels. "D*mn the flashes, more pixels ahead!"
>
> I've been playing around with a friend's set of Olympus FL50s on the
> E-1. It does a remarkable job and is well executed. However, the
> distance calculation is somewhat overridden by preflash and a
> hyperactive ESP mode. It does very very well, especially when using
> two or more flashes off-camera, but there is so much "black magic"
> going on that when it falls off a cliff, there is no rymn or reason
> for the failure. Like the 3D color matrix metering in the Nikon F5,
> it did a fantastic job 95% of the time, but when it blew exposure it
> did so in a non-linear fashion as it guessed the scene so wrong it
> applied the wrong table of assumptions to the calculation. Again,
> were talking about the unusual situation where it blew apart, not the
> norm, however. The Olympus flash system does remarkably well, but
> with most (or all) of these wireless systems, they are IR based. For
> me, that is a fatal flaw as I'm constantly placing my off-camera
> flashes in bizaar locations with no clean line-of-sight to the
> camera. Flashes go in balconies, inside lamp shades, clamped to
> suspended ceilings or even placed inside suspended ceilings shining
> down through lighting fixtures or vents. Those crazy ebay wireless
> triggers have been a lifesaver for me.
>
> My on-camera flash gear comprises of Vivitar 285HV flashes. For
> event shoots, I usually drag along my monolights for overall room
> lighting. My typical configuration is to put the ambient lighting
> about 2-stops down. This is where you make your compromises in ISO,
> Aperture and Shutterspeed. I do this one MAMMOTH shoot every year
> where I now place two monolights and a single 285HV up in the balcony
> with the stands raised up so the lights are almost in the stage
> lights. This gives me a working F5.0 across an entire 100' wide
> stage with minimal fall-off to the very back of the stage. So, three
> strobes light about a 100' by 50' area. When working down front,
> I'll also use an on-camera 285HV dialed in about 1/4 power to act as
> a fill light when shooting close. Otherwise, the harsh imitation
> stage-lighting tends to give hard shadows with black gullies in the
> wrinkles. Not pretty.
>
> Manual exposure control of flash gear is necessary when you have tons
> of mixed lighting. Where it struggles, however, is when you have
> aggressively changing lighting conditions. Last month, I shot an
> outdoor wedding under a gazebo. During the ceremony itself, it went
> from overcast to bright sunshine, to overcast again. The celebrants
> were actually out from under the gazebo roof and standing in the sun.
> The sun happened to be directly behind them and the sun was
> reflecting off of the water. Sunny-16 on steroids. This was one
> really tough lighting situation and even though I rarely use flash
> during ceremonies, I had to this time--there was absolutely no way
> around it. I did shoot Delta 400 in the OM-4T with no flash (and on
> auto--F8 and be there), but those ended up being a bit too flat in
> the shadows to be useable. Frankly, in all my years of wedding
> shoots, this one proved to be the most difficult from a lighting
> perspective. What I SHOULD have done was shoot the ceremony with the
> IS-3/G40. I know from experience that it would have nailed it in
> these conditions. As it was, I had to spend a huge amount of time
> during RAW conversion to get the files usable. Thank goodness, the
> E-1 has a wider than normal exposure latitude.
>
> AG
>
>
>
>
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