Flash exposure

[Mark Elberson]

Do you think that's air you're breathing now? (Matrix quote LOL)
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Nice!

[peety3]

Thanks for the feedback. A couple responses to questions: I tend to
use shutter priority just because I tend to photograph events with lots
going on... don't want low light to cause a slow shutter speed and
therefore blur. Typically use 1/125. I almost always get the green "proper exposure" light... but turns out not to be the case. Biggest issue is with group photos; if I'm relatively close to an object and it fills the frame, exposure is better. If I'm back 15 or more feet photographing six or eight people full length... not so much.


Oh - typically the camera does select a wide open aperture.
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I was afraid of that. "I want good shutter speeds!" sometimes translates into "why are my pictures dark?", and if the camera typically selects a wide-open aperture you're likely on the edge or into the danger zone with your settings. I don't know the IIn featureset, so I don't know if it offers "Safety Shift" or what ways it can help. If you don't have Safety Shift enabled, and there isn't enough light for your shot, you've locked the camera to 1/125th and a particular ISO, so the only thing it can do is open the lens wide and take a shot at 1/125th, underexposing everything if it's dark. If your aperture/ISO combination is insufficient for ambient light shooting at 1/125th, flash may not be able to help much unless you're close enough.


Try aperture-priority at wide-open sometime, with or without flash. If you find that your shutter speeds are real slow, then you should be boosting the ISO to a point that you can still avoid the blur. Then, you might find that your flash has enough oomph to get things done. If it doesn't, you may need to dial in some flash exposure compensation and just put a little human magic into the computer you're holding. All of this assumes that the background is relevant to your shot; otherwise, manual exposure may be a better choice.