Dr Flash, thank you for that report on Will Crockett's DVD as well as your
experiential notes.
First of all, his recommendation of keeping the ambient one-stop lower than
flash is an outstanding one. Depending on other factors, I will do either
one or two stops. With the OM system, this was always a breeze as you would
stick the camera in auto mode and adjust the aperture till the scale
indicated 1/30 of a second. With a dedicated flash, the OM (except for first
generation OM-2) would fire at 1/60 which would automatically underexpose
the ambient background one stop. NO other camera did it that well. By
keeping the ambient this close, you would get far fewer big variences in
exposure between shots.
The ONLY camera I know of that would nail fill-in flash perfectly every time
was my IS-3 with G40 flash. It set the flash exposure based on
focus-distance. (it assumed the focus was set on the subject). and the
background (ambient) was set according to the surround metering. It REALLY
did work and I used that setup for many an outdoor portrait session.
As to the IR and daylight, I agree. I'm an RF kinda of guy, and I suspect
that this is one reason why Olympus chose to not use an IR trigger on their
"R" flash models.
I am reminded, again, why the OM system is such an incredible thing. It
truely represents the absolute maturity of design. With the exception of
autofocus and a few more cupholders, the OM system--especially in auto-flash
control, is lightyears ahead of current systems. We took a HUGE step
backwards with not only digital, but most PASM cameras. PASM with
nonsensical digital readouts in the viewfinder have solely set back the
camera-photographer interface by 50 years. And then the camera
manufacturers have to try and fix the error of their ways with preflash, IR
and a host of other things that were previously solved. Other than the
Minolta A-series, there has been NO digital camera made that truely
calculates flash exposure based on subject distance (and that was poorly
implemented and usually defeated by preflash). Why is distance calculation
so important? Because it works 100% of the time and is completely
independant of ambient lighting conditions. After all, when you use a flash
in manual-exposure mode, you are totally tied to the distance calculation.
This is lighting 101.
That also goes a long ways to explain
> my travails with the T-32 last week in an auditorium where 99% of what I
> was shooting was way outside that range. As I said, I'd have been
> better off shooting manual.
>
Chuck, this is one of those "been there, been doing that" things for me
too. I've been chasing flash exposures around like a mother with an ADHD
child. It ain't working sometimes. Yes, this is one reason why I'm
drifting back to the OM system. The trevails of film pale in comparison to
the trevails of flash exposure control. But I will say the Vivitar 285HV's
sensor does a far better job at great distances than any other auto-flash
I've used. (speaking of such, I had to teardown and repair one of mine
tonight).
> Finally, manual flash (and focus) is for static setups. He gave as an
> example shooting portraits of 160 corporate managers on the golf course
> with Gary Player. Fixed distance, fixed setup, change subjects and
> shoot. Of course, Dr. Flash has no digital TTL so shoots manual in
> almost all cases. But now I think I understand where TTL might actually
> be useful and also where it wont.
>
Back in the day when I used to shoot Little League team/individual shots, we
lived by manual flash exposure. Those 160 corporate managers? Try 600+
kids in an evening. I did the individuals, the chief photographer did the
groups and he'd assist in matching names with roll and frame number. How
two of us were able to do 600+ in an evening, night after night, is beyond
me. Nowadays, with digital, it takes teams of people to pull off the same,
and our margins are worse than ever. Those packages were nearly pure profit
20 years ago. The boss told me one time how much they made on team pictures
alone, and I quickly learned about the economics of mass production and NO
post-processing. Get it right in camera, NEVER force the lab to correct.
Anyway, we'd measure the "set", I used a Canon T90, with Tokina AT-X 35-70
Zoom, and some decent-sized flash powered by an external battery pack. One
verifying exposure with the lightmeter and off we went. I was never so glad
that the T90 would auto-rewind the film. :)
AG
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