At 5:00 AM +0000 12/13/02, olympus-digest wrote:
>Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2002 05:39:12 +0800
>From: "Clemente Colayco" <litefoot@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Subject: Re: [OM] fill flash and burned-out faces (use a flashmeter)
>
>How low a power must the small flash be to avoid messing up the exposure?
>
>Snip: I most often put a tiny manual flash on the camera, with the larger
>real flashes distributed around the subject to taste. The pipsqueak flash
>on the camera triggers the real flashes when the picture is taken. The lack
>of wires is a real help, and flash triggers are cheaper than radio triggers.
It depends on the intent.
The small flash can be used as a fill flash. In this case, it is pointed
directly at the subject and should put perhaps half or a quarter (one stop, two
stops) less light on the subject than the main flash. Some experimentation is
in order, to get the fill effect without the fill look, or even the hated flash
look.
If the small flash is a trigger only, you want it to put three stops less light
on the subject than the main flash. Typically, I do this by pointing the flash
straight up, rather than at the subject. Then the small flash just adds to the
ambient in the room (if the room isn't too large). Outdoors, or in a big room,
you may do better pointing the small flash at the subject but dialing the
flashpower down. Anyway, the flash triggers on my main flash units are
sensitive enough that it's easy to arrange things so the main flash dominates.
Although I give specific rules above, I must say that getting this to work
isn't hard, and almost any reasonable setup will work. That's one reason I
like it.
Joe
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