What went wrong here ?? (1 Viewer)

[nikovich]

Hi guys, saw this wonderful Porcupine yesterday, and thought I'd try to actually get some use of the built in flash on my rebel xt , with these disasterous results This was all done on the fly, while the little critter was still sat there so I had to be real quick incase it charged me.
Suffice to say I over-exposed it slightly ( bit of an understatement )

I did get some nice photos without the Flash , but was hoping to get more of a catch-light in the eye.

So, looking at the Exif info , what settings should I have used ? It was a really really bright day , with the Sun very high in the sky.

Thanks for any help . I've got to get to grips with flash seeing as I've just ordered a 430Ex .

Nick

 

[Saphire]

Its a wonderfully sharp photo, I have just had a play in photoshop. If you have shot it in raw there is a chance that you can get it better than what I have done with the JPG.

It looks like you took the photo with snow as the background, all I can suggest in these circumstances is to shoot in manual mode and take a reading of the back of your hand and set the shutter and aperture untill the reading shows the bar in the middle. This may not give you a true exposer but it will be close.
I usually take a quick reading off grass which is lit the same as the subject.


Added note. I have just re-read your post about you using flash as fill in. I have not tried this but my guess is you should have lowered the power output of the flash with the flash compensation menu, to a minus setting. If you have to go through menu's to alter the compensation then I would just stop down more and given a greater f stop to compensate for the full power of the pop up flash.

 

[nikovich]

Thanks Christine ,

I did reduce the flash compensation but I think because I was shooting pretty much wide open, that might have really intensified the flash output . I really need to read up on this more

I'll post a 'proper' photo of the Porcupine in the gallery later

 

[nikovich]

OK, I know what I did wrong now. This is what happens when you don't read the manual , and take a photo on the spur of the moment

 

[JonSadler]

I don't know about anyone else but I think that your error has created a great image. It looks like a pen and ink drawing.

Regards
Jon

 

[Macswede]

I also think it's a beautiful high key image. Meant to say so before but kept forgetting.

 

[Macswede]

I haven't forgotten this image and when I was reading a book recently on post-processing I immediately thought of it when reading a section on restoring faded images by duplicating layers and using blending mode Multiplying in Photoshop. I also reduced the colour saturation. Doesn't look quite like in the book but it might be an alternative to the original image which I also liked.

 

[RalfR]

Having looked at the photos, I think the problem is genral exposure rather than any flash problem.

Two things will happen when you pop the flash, the first being that the camera will alter the shutter speed to the highest sync speed of the flash. On my Pentax, this is 1/180, however some cameras are 1/125 or 1/250. When shooting in daylight (which I assume this is), wide open (which I think you were doing), you'll end up with overexposure.

The second is that the flash will go off, assuming you have the right settings. The flash input to this photo was probably marginal or negligable IMHO.

In short, I think the camera has automatically reduced the shutter speed about 3 stops, e.g. from 1/1000 to 1/125 as soon as you popped the internal flash, while the aperture remained the same.

It would be easy to find out, just have a look at the data on the photos you shot just befor popping the flash. Compare the shutter speed and aperture from the two images.

Just my ywo Bob's worth.

Cheers