For what it's worth, my opinion is you don't need more power if your subject
distance is "about 6 to 8 feet." as you stated on 12/10. "Search out your
feeeeelings, Luke. You know it to be true." (Obligatory Star Wars quote)
You are using f4 on the F280.
Check the negs. Is the face in the negative a medium tone or a deep,
near-black tone?
If the face is nearly black in the negative, you have an exposure difference
between the foreground and the background. If you get a bigger flash, you
get the same burned-out face and well-exposed background-- but you'll be
able to use a smaller aperture. That's not a solution!
Adding a diffuser will change the character of the over-exposure on the
subject but it won't change the overexposure. (The face will be over-lit
with a less harsh light but that's not a solution either.)
The problem isn't that you've run out of flash power. It's that the
camera-to-subject distance is shorter than the camera-to-background
distance.
If your flash was pointed straight ahead and your subject was 6 feet away
but ALSO 6 feet from the wall behind her, you have discovered your problem!
That's a two stop difference between the amount of light on the background
and the amount on the subject.
Since one of your aims is to keep it simple, I suggest trying these 3
methods, in order of increasing complexity.
1. Have the lab "fix" the prints. This is where you start. If they're
printing color negs, they have a "+" button. If the kid behind the counter
can't find it, you need another place to have your photos made. Until you
have a quality-oriented lab, no amount of German hardware can save you.
Since you are a quality-oriented photographer, you need good tools. You
already have pro-grade tools in your shooting kit. You also need pro-grade
tools (the lab) when the prints are made. If you've been using a 1-hour
processor, maybe it's time to find a pro lab. It's worth it. When I took
flash pictures at my sister's wedding reception, the subjects were 4-6 feet
from me. The background was _dozens_ of feet beyond. Since I took the work
to a pro lab, it cost me a bloody fortune but every single flesh tone was
perfect and the backgrounds were black as pitch. Machine prints from the
supermarket would have botched every frame- guaranteed.
2. Put the subject near the back wall. Maybe in a chair or in front of an
interesting piece of furniture. This will make the background exposure much
closer to the foreground exposure.
3. For horizontal shots, bounce the F280 off the ceiling. The
flash-to-ceiling distance will be added to both the ceiling-to-subject
distance AND the ceiling-to-background distance. The difference between the
subject exposure and the background exposure will be less.
Lama,
who really liked Paul Farrar's solution. I'll try that one. He's talking
about a lighting ratio there and that's the control-oriented type of working
I'm interested in. It may not be the "simple" solution you said you're
seeking though.
From: "Richard F. Man" <richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> OK, I need advice whether to spend the bucks or not. To recap, the problem
> to solve is that w/ the F280, I get too many flash burn pictures -
> typically the face is overexposed. The F280 is set to auto and the OM-4T
> aperture is usually set to F4.
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