Joe,
Yes, I concur with your findings. I must admit buying a flashmeter was an
enlightning experience for me! (pun, pun :>)) I am surprised that very
little has been said both on the newsgroups (and in most photography books)
about the widely varying results one gets from auto flash metering. It's not
just Olympus. Most people are testing their film +developer combinations and
worrying about 1/3 stop acuracy. Others are debating the relative merits of
centre-weighted vs matrix metering - but nobody ever talks about flash
exposure acuracy. Especially when trying to balance daylight and flash for
predictable results.
I find the "sufficient light" indicator on the T-32 blinks even when light
output is down nearly 2-stops due to battery drain. I at the moment am
contemplating creating a curve of compensation one should apply as batteries
degrade from new. Owing to the unpredicability of cells vs drain vs usage vs
time I feel this is near worthless!
Roger Hicks in his book "Learning to Light" states that auto flash is
practically useless in fill-in situations. He recommends switching to manual
and calculating the exposure manually!
Do any other people here worry as much about flash exposure accuracy as they
do daylight? Are serious OM'rs happy to trust the circuitry and resort to
bracketing like other brand owners?
Regards
Trevor Noble.
----- Original Message -----
From: Joel Wilcox <jowilcox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: 01 May 1999 16:48
Subject: Re: [OM] T32 Auto setting inaccurate
> At 02:10 AM 5/1/99 +0100, Trevor you wrote:
> >
> >Can I conclude from this, for accurate flash work with scenes that do
not
> >average out to grey card values, one is better off switching to manual
mode
> >and trusting the flashmeter rather than the T-32?
> >Regds,
> >Trevor.
>
> Hi Trevor,
>
> I'm actually in the midst of field testing a number of flashes for macro
> work. I'm finding that manual is much more trustworthy in a situation in
> which direct rather than direct + reflected light is expected (i.e.,
> outdoors as opposed to indoors). The flash shoots light in more than one
> direction. TTL flash in close range outdoors works only with major
> compensation adjustments for me (in the range of -1 1/2 to -2 stops on the
> exp. comp. dial). Outdoors, published GN's for manual need to be halved
> (for me at least).
>
> This is an indirect answer to your question, since I don't know what to
> tell you about using your flashmeter or not, but working with known,
tested
> GN's in "non-standard" environments really makes the most sense to me.
>
> Joel
>
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