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"Superspeed" photography .

2011-01-18T00:52:00.000-08:00

Most high-speed photography is done in the dark with a slow shutter speed and the motion being captured by a flash on low power , usually resulting in a captured speed of around 1/10000th of a second . See my post on high speed photography .

Tonight I managed to wire up my camera to trigger an event when the shutter opens and at very high speed .
I see many possibilities for this especially since I will no longer need to wait for darkness to do high speed photography .
I call this "superspeed" photography and am not sure if it has ever been done before .
I suppose time will tell if I get good results from this but so far this is what I've accomplished :
Doesn't look like much does it ? But that spark was triggered by the shutter of my camera opening at 1/200th second .

I did a few more tests and managed to take it all the way to 1/4000th sec and still capture the spark - triggered by my camera's shutter opening .
1/4000th second :

I can see all sorts of possibilities for high speed photography in broad daylight
Stay tuned !
20/01/2011 , I tried a few pictures outside in the evening ....

Then I went indoors to try and find something that would react nicely to a 20000 volt spark . A water drop didn't do much .

Some brown sugar looked slightly better .

Then one of the flies that had been annoying me all afternoon wandered between the wires - I couldn't help smiling as I initiated and photographed the last millisecond of the fly's life :)

I will try to find something that reacts nicely to a spark going through it , or perhaps use my 'monster flash' modification with its giant capacitor attached to generate some 'real' energy .

29/01/2011 .
Today I added a high performance coil to my hammerhead flash and am getting about 50 000 volts out of it .

72km in 16 1/2 hours

2011-01-04T09:45:00.000-08:00

No pictures this time :( my compact failed but I finally succeeded in going around Ruapehu in less than a day and it's on my photovan blog .

Preparing for a "Drown the gown" shoot .

2010-12-06T22:06:00.000-08:00

I'm looking forward to this coming Sunday [ 12th December 2010 ] .

I have perhaps 8 models in wedding dresses and maybe 5-10 photographers along with assistants and friends turning up . We're going to get some pictures at Bridal Veil Falls near Raglan in New Zealand . Perhaps a few shots of them walking in the river at the top and then we head down for some shots with the girls walking in the water at the bottom of the falls .
I've also made some smoke bombs to add to the effects :)

Smoke effects

2010-11-19T10:32:00.000-08:00

I've been looking into the possibility of a smoke machine for special effects but it would be difficult in outdoor settings - carrying all the extra gear and power supplies . I did some research and found that mixing 3 parts potassium nitrate [ saltpeter ] to 2 parts brown sugar , in a frying pan , creates a 'treacle' that , when set , makes for a very good smoke bomb . The smoke is non-toxic , it burns very quickly and produces a lot of smoke .
I just need to get a metal dish so I don't leave that residue behind during outdoor shoots .

Fired an antique flash bulb today :)

2010-11-12T21:28:00.001-08:00

E=MC squared - it's all relative to the observer .

2010-11-10T23:39:00.000-08:00

A herd of elephants [progress] is walking toward an anthill [the photography industry] , one ant [stubborn photographer] stands on top and says "Hold on , I don't think you have the right to do this , it's unethical ! " .... we all know what the outcome will be because those elephants won't even notice the ant .... squish ! .

Do you read statements about digital 'cheapening the industry' ? Is that really the case or is it simply evolution of the industry ? Future generations will look back and say " Film really made photography expensive , luckily digital made it more affordable ! " - it's all relative to the observer and people are resistant to change especially if it means they need to adapt or get left behind .
I was speaking to someone who makes a living designing and building electronic components . He told me that he started off working on mechanical adding machines but when he saw the first electronic calculator released he realized that he had to adapt to the new technology or get left behind . If he was anything like today's professional photographers he would have tried to convince everyone to 'stand together against change' to save his job , but he was more intelligent than that and is now a successful electronics technician .

It's the same with the digital era except for the fact that change is happening faster which means we have to adapt faster or get left behind sooner .

More people benefit from these changes than those who lose out , and you will always have the stubborn die-hard's arguing ethics all the way to the poor house while the adaptable ones take their jobs .
When computers came out we were told they could do our jobs 10X faster .... did this mean we had more spare time ? No , it meant the boss could get rid of 9 people and give one person 10X as much work ! .... those other 9 people ? ...... they had to adapt .... and they did because nobody was going to stand against the introduction of computers that benefit everyone .
Did the photographers complain about those people who lost their jobs or did they embrace the technology along with digital photography that also made their job easier ? Did they insist they would stay with film to protect the jobs of people that work in that industry or did they embrace digital and exploit it to "milk" the industry with their knowledge of photography that , up till then , was a mysterious subject except for those who could afford a lot of time and money on film and developing ? No , they bought home printers that did other people out of jobs and forced them to adapt or get left behind .

A few years ago the first DSLR was released with video . The purists recoiled in horror and some stated they would never buy a camera with video mode .... I wonder what they will do when all the new cameras have it ? Some suggested that soon an editor would be able to send only one photographer and tell him to get stills and video footage , thereby doing someone out of a job ..... the mules dug their heels in and started arguing ethics again . Now there are people losing their jobs because they refused to adapt to the situation while the open-minded ones are getting the work because they embraced the new technology .

Then we have the professional wedding photographers who refuse to hand over all the images to the customer but rather 'whittle' down 2000 images to supply 300 to the customer , the pictures they don't mind other photographers seeing - while they delete precious memories that the customer could have had "in case another photographer sees their mistakes and they get a bad name" .
So what do they want then , a good name with other photographers or with customers ? Who pays the bills ?
Today things have changed to the point where someone can bypass all the previous obstacles and simply post a video of themselves singing on youtube and if everyone likes it they get famous - who needs all the purists in-between to analyze them and decide whether they are good enough for the consumers or not ? Now the consumers decide what they want before the purists get a chance to "show their superior knowledge" and tell everyone why they wouldn't give someone a chance at demonstrating their 'inferior' skills . This change has been good for the majority .

Go to the photography forums and post an image and watch it get torn to pieces for all its " technical deficiencies " that would prevent it winning a competition - and then show the customer and watch them put away all the "competition entries " as the "underexposed , badly composed , slightly out of focus " picture with uncle Albert actually laughing for a change becomes the one they put on their wall - the same image the purists would have deleted for fear of their peers seeing their imperfections .
I was telling someone preparing for a wedding that "to the chagrin of the professionals" I hand over all 1500 -2000 [ less about 25 deleted for serious imperfections] images to the couple and he assured me that he wouldn't hire a photographer who won't hand over all the images .... the consumers decide which path the industry will take these days .
The professional purists recoil in horror at the idea of doing this and dig their heels in and complain as the "weekend warriors" , as they call them , offer to do the wedding cheaper and hand over all images on disc ..... guess what , digital made it easier for everyone not just the elite few ! - [they also say that 1500 is too many .... well how long have the couple got to view them ? are they forgetting that ?] They tell us we should all "stand together" against this trend and refuse to give in to get things right again ..... and they slowly get swept away by the tide of change because they may as well leave $100 on the road with a note asking people to leave it there and hope that nobody takes it .... there will always be someone there to seize the opportunity if they don't adapt to change .
If professional photographers think they should be the only ones to benefit from new technology then they can think again , an open minded approach is needed now more than ever if they want to survive because now the consumer decides what they want regardless of what the purists think they will want .
On a recent discussion on a forum about someone not liking the way things were at work an apt expression came out :
"Suck it in or find another job!" .

14/11/2010
This got me thinking of a few other subjects that get on my nerves about the professional photography crowd .
Selective colour in images : I've never met a 'consumer' [ non photographer ] who doesn't absolutely love selective colour images - perhaps a bride in B&W with some colour still showing in the bouquet , if done properly this can look really good .
But in the 'early days' of photoshop the pro's did this to death and then decided that it was no longer cool and now 'detest' any image like this they see posted on the forums .
Hypocrites ! They all did it and now think that every bride has seen it before !? I read a discussion on a forum where an amateur was explaining that the couple had requested selective colour images and the pros were giving the advice that she should be firm with them and tell them she doesn't do that type of thing as it would harm her 'reputation' ... as what ? a hypocritical snob amongst the 'elite' ?
It makes me sick ........ then again maybe it is good because I will tell that couple that if they hire me I will do as many selective colour images they want and take the work away from the pros that care more about what other snobby photographers think than about what their customers think ! They still haven't realized that if they don't supply what the consumer wants they will slowly erode away into the history of stiff-necked narrow-minded casualties of change - goodbye and good riddance - and thanks for the work I get out of your demise ! .

Ok , now that's out of my system [ maybe I should put up an image of a badly done selective colour to really wind them up ! ] .... let's talk about microstock .
The early image libraries contained digital images that customers could buy for maybe $300 to use in a magazine - perhaps $50 to use in a local magazine or $20 for a very small image to use on their website .
Well with the way the industry is today media is being published at a rapid rate and this can't happen if images are so expensive - along comes microstock who says " Let's sell the images cheaper and in bigger bulk " ! So someone submits an image that now sells for $20 for the largest file size and $1 for a small file ..... and sells the same image 15000 times , at $1[?] a go , and makes $15000 from an image that might have made them $1000 trying to sell at a higher price .
Now there are many ways of selling images and some may say that they could have sold it with all sorts of licensing fees and costs and made one months wages on one sale .... in the ' old days ' maybe and depending on whether they would have made contact with that same customer who bought it on microstock .... and would that customer pay so much for it from them if they could get a similar image on microstock for much , much less ? Wake up , things change , it's isn't wrong the way the industry is headed it's just evolving with technology so keep up or get left behind - and digging your heels in will mean you definitely get left behind .

Many things are changing ,[ have I mentioned this yet ?] those professional 2 megapixel cameras that people bought for $10000 are being left behind by the 14 megapixel entry level cameras that cost $600 and now everyone's a photographer and nobody cares about the pedantic opinions of professional photographers as to what makes a good image - if it looks good to people who will pay money for it then it's good enough for them .
So is that un-ethical for those who took out another mortgage on their homes to fund their proposed career in photography ?
It depends on their reason I suppose , did they invest in all the gear to see what good they could do for humanity or did they think "Here's a chance to make a killing out of all those suckers who don't know about photography" .... and now the technology they wanted to exploit for their benefit has bitten them in the butt because it also made it easy enough for ''those suckers'' to take their own images that are acceptable enough for their use .

Don't talk to me about quality and standards because we no longer live in a society that can put up with having the Mona Lisa in one spot on their wall for years on end , before cameras people had no choice in the matter because it took so long to get a decent image people obsessed about it and had the time to do so - and then had to put up with the same boring 'perfect' piece of art on their wall .
Now a photographer obsesses about one image while the average consumer flips through 300 images they took on their day at the beach .
Times are changing faster than ever , give the consumer what they want , more images with less fuss about image quality , and you will survive . If you have the time to obsess about image quality then do so - if not just make sure you get the shot because that is all the customer wants to see , before they flip through the other 2000 images and forget that one shot you worried so much about .

If you miss that one important shot because you were fussing about perfection and "the right kind of light " they will be angrier than they would be if you got the picture and it wasn't quite 'perfect' .
You don't want to hand over 2000 images because it's not 'cool' with your peers ? No problem , I'll do it then along with abunch of selective colour images :) - you can go back to obsessing about one image in the unemployment queue .

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The Pirate shoot .

2010-11-09T10:09:00.000-08:00

On Sunday I had another go at working with models . I went to the location early and planned out some shots .
They turned up 1 1/2 hours late [ the difference between landscapes and working with people :) ] but the light had got better . For one of the shots where I had a flash from the side it looked ok but I realized that the shadows showed two light sources and when sunlight is the main light source direct fill-flash would have probably been better , or arranging the so as not to show the shadows . It was also pointed out to me that they should have been looking in the same direction and perhaps pulling harder .

When I do a shoot like this it's all about having some fun as well and they really got into it ....

Until he went off his head !

As usual I like playing around with fire and flames :)
These were all lit by a flash with orange filters on the head and tungsten white balance to make the sky blue .

And if course I have to take my jagged mirror out for a few shots as well ....

It was a reasonably successful venture and I learned a bit more once again - all the things I need to remember for 'next time' :) .

Shooting models - the 'flaming sword' shoot .

2010-11-03T00:57:00.000-07:00

I haven't had much experience in shooting models and recently gave it a go . I have a lot to learn still .
First I need to learn to calm down and not panic when someone looks at me and says " What must I do ?".
Of course it helps when the model has done this before and she just 'gets into it' and all you have to do is take pictures .
I recently tried to step things up a bit and set a sword on fire . I set the ambient exposure to two stops under , and
the white balance to 'tungsten' to make the background look blue . Then I added some tungsten filters on the flash to cancel the blue and add a little warmth to the subject .

The shutter speed was around 1/1000th in some of the pictures to freeze the flames and I used the Nikon D40 since its electronic shutter allowed me to shoot normal flash at high speeds - the flash was a SB800 triggered via an SB24 on my camera , in SU4 mode .

I'm still making mistakes but learning in the process ......

Super-flash tests

2010-10-18T23:56:00.000-07:00

This afternoon I decided to put the new "mutant" flash through its paces to see what it could do .
I fired it about 15-20 times all together without giving it much time to cool down .
I took a few shots to compare it to the SB800 on full power .Ignore the background getting brighter , it was raining and the sun was coming out again . Concentrate on the foreground and shadows .
I used the D50 because it can sync flash at any speed .

I had the "super-flash" on half power which was half the capacitors in the original flash plus the 3500uf cap I added .

Then I moved up the driveway to really put it to the test ....

I then moved to the top of the driveway . And tried at 1/3200th sec .

I would imagine the flash tube will last as it doesn't appear to have suffered any side effects .
"Full power " is when the other half of the capacitor bank inside the flash handle is also connected.

Extending the SU800's "angle"

2010-10-02T19:57:00.001-07:00

For some this may be common knowledge but today I was doing some experiments with the SU800 outdoors .
I had the SB800 on a stand behind me in remote mode firing at 1/128th power and kept changing the angle of the camera until it would no longer fire .
When they were both pointing toward that fence it fired every time even with the flash behind the camera - maybe it was bouncing the signal off the fence ?
Anyway I reached an angle when the SB800 would no longer fire ...

You kind of wonder why Nikon would make the trigger system facing directly forward which is the last place anyone would have their lighting .
Then I added something to the equation , without moving anything , which made it fire again ....

I had tried simply placing my finger in front of the SU800 and that worked , the signal bounced off my finger and triggered the flash behind the camera .
I just added this little white object in front of the SU800 which bounced the signal backwards and made the flash fire every time .

I see possibilities here , for the SU800 and SB800 , I think I could design something that attaches to each of them to send and receive signals from any angle - or at least increase their reliability in some situations .

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Facial recognition flash

2010-09-21T22:32:00.001-07:00

I was just thinking about this - many compacts have facial recognition which could make getting the dorrect exposure easier - assuming a certain skin colour of course .
The biggest problem with flash metering is knowing what to meter off .
Nikon's new 2012 segment metering is perhaps a step in the direction of eventually being able to have facial recognition built in to the camera meter , as with live view , which could result in much more accurate flash exposure if the camera can differentiate between what is and isn't a face .

Facial recognition flash

2010-09-21T22:31:00.000-07:00

Moving the focus point can affect flash output !

2010-09-20T02:45:00.001-07:00

I'll just emphasize here that the flash does not meter off the selected focus point , the change has nothing to do with the way the flash system meters .
This will also only happen in TTL-BL mode and with Nikon's CLS wireless flash which also meters in TTL-BL mode . The possibility of it happening falls within a very small window of the metering system - when the meter detects under-exposure causing the flash system to compensate by increasing output , or conversely by decreasing output if it detects that the exposure is suddenly correct after it showing as being under-exposed .
The possibility of this happening when a focus point is moved also depends heavily on the metering mode selected [ it must be matrix metering ] and how matrix metering works in that particular body - because it varies between models .
I used the Nikon D90 in these tests , I've tested the matrix metering system before and understand [ to a degree] how it 'thinks' .
In many of the Nikon's [ not too sure about Canon ] matrix metering is strongly weighted toward the selected focus point and the 'focus plane' that it sits on , and it adjusts exposure accordingly .
This means that if you are photographing a landscape and move the focus point from bright sky to shadow area "in the same frame" your exposure could vary by as much as two stops without even moving the camera .

Now it has been suggested that the changes seen in flash output are not due to the metering but rather due to the change in distance info from the lens which affect the output of TTL-BL flash [ not wireless which doesn't use the distance info ] .
This will cause changes as well but not the type I am demonstrating here . I have selected a scene in which the darker object which causes the an increase in output , is actually closer than the lighter object proving that the change in this case is not related to distance info from the lens .

Here is my test scene , the back of a camera closer to the camera with a white multi-plug adapter further back .

Theoretically when I change the focus point from the white object to the black object closer to the camera the flash exposure should decrease as the lens registers a closer focus point .

First I take a picture with the focus point moved onto the white object :

Then I move it onto the black object closer to the camera .... the flash exposure increases !?!

Why did that happen ?
Well TTL-BL and wireless CLS 'watch your meter" and adjust output accordingly .
Here's the back of the screen in the first shot :
The camera's meter was happy with the exposure with the focus point on the white object - that 'focus plane' decided that the camera's settings were correct for the scene so the camera told the flash to back off accordingly .

After taking the picture I simply moved the focus point onto the black object closer to the camera , which should have backed off the flash according to the distance info , but when the 'focus plane' shifted and the white object was no longer a dominant part of matrix metering's equation it decided that the image was under-exposed and the meter moved to "-1"
No camera settings were changed , the focus point was simply moved .

The flash output was increased because matrix metering decided that the scene , for that focus point , was under-exposed and so it decided to increase the flash output accordingly !
So this proves that regardless of the changes caused by the distance information from the lens , there are isolated instances where flash output can be affected by moving the focus point in the same scene with no other changes to the camera's settings :) .

The "D6000" and Nikon's numbering system .

2010-09-16T00:26:00.000-07:00

With photokina just around the corner , and the release of the new D7000 there is general disagreement about whether this is a replacement for the D90 or the D300s .
My thoughts are that it is something in-between ... a "tweener" .
Not quite enough specs to replace the D300 on all counts but too many to be a D90 replacement .
I'm thinking that Nikon are perhaps priming us for the release of another pro dx camera which disappeared when the D3 was released . The D3 was the wrong name for a full frame camera , it should have had a different name since it was in a very different class to the D2X [ fx format vs dx format ] .
We had the D1 , D100 and D70 , then the D2 series , D200 and D80 , next the D3 , D300 and D90 .
The D3 should have been a dx format for those who want a pro body in dx format and the fx format should have had another name and been in a different class .

So Nikon start running our of names for the different models and things are getting messy with the numbering so they name their entry level model the "D3000" giving it room for the D3100 , 3200 , 3300 .... for a few years of updates . This camera is the 'bait' to get beginners to buy a Nikon body cheap - and pay more for lenses that can focus on it .
Then the D5000 series , no focus drive either but a few more features for those who want a little more .
Also plenty of room for updates without changing numbers , 5100 , 5200 , 5300 ........
So we can expect the "thousand' numbering system to prevail in all models including the replacement for the D90 and D300 . People have been expecting a D400 and D95 but I doubt that those numbers will ever appear .

So perhaps the D7000 is slightly below the standards of the expected "D400" so that their next dx body can be that much higher than it - a pro dx body with 11 fps etc. etc. - a D9000 maybe ?
Then the D90 replacement would fall between the D5000 and D7000 - a plastic body with built in focus drive - a D6000 .
But then again what if they pull the same trick they did with the D50 giving us a D40 with no focus drive ? is their plan to slowly phase focus drives out of the lesser bodies so we have the choice between a cheap body and buying expensive lenses to focus with it , or having to upgrade to a more expensive body so we can use the older lenses ? That would mean a D5100 with no focus drive as the only other option - same sensor as the D7000 with less features .

And why did they name the entry level camera a "D3000" ? you would think they would make it a D1000 but maybe they have better plans for the nicer sounding "1000" .

So we have entry level D3000 to D3100
One step up                                  D5000
Keen amateur from D90 to                  D6000 ?
New semi-semi pro                             D7000
In between the replacements   semi-pro     D300 - not to be replaced .
New pro dx body                               D9000
Update for D3                                  D1000
Update for D700                              D2000

So the question is if we will a D6000 or a D5100 which tells us " no more focus drive unless you upgrade "
Of course this is all pure speculation but interesting to think about :)

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The future of photography

2010-09-11T20:43:00.000-07:00

About 10 years ago I was talking to a salesman in a Hi-Fi shop about the 'new' "7 channel " surround sound system and asked him why we need 7 channels . He replied that we may not actually 'need' it , but as long as the technology is available people will utilize it .
And that's about the way it is today with digital cameras . We can do a lot with a basic camera but the manufacturers need to sell their products and compete with one another , which is good for us actually because it means better products at competitive prices . But this often results in new 'gimmicks' that none of really need - but help to bias someone's decision when buying a new camera .

Let's take face detection as an example . How many professional photographers thought we needed that !? Then it progressed to profile-face detection , multiple face detection , smile detection , blink detection ..... all these extra 'features' to make the 'old' technology seem outdated and redundant so we want to upgrade .

So where will this take us ? It's not too hard to work out what possibilities there are for the future no matter how ridiculous they may sound - manufacturers need to give people a reason to upgrade or make their products our first purchase .

Possibilities :
GPS linked internet mode . With the ability to track where a photograph was taken built in to some cameras this may become 'standard' eventually as the manufacturers struggle to keep up as well as compete with each other . There are many "modes" available in compact cameras , beach , snow , museum , fireworks .......
Now imagine if there was the option of just one "auto smart location" [ASL] mode to save granny having to learn how to use her camera .
When compacts are permanently connected to the internet , along with built in GPS all tied in with google-earth the new smart location mode will be able to detect where you are , whether you are inside or outside a building , work out whether you are at the beach or in the snow - if there is actually snow at that time of the year , what time it is ........ a quick automatic internet search on 'events' in the area along with a program of the event - and next thing you know the camera has selected fireworks mode because it is 9 pm and that is when the fireworks display starts and according to the stored information you have been waiting in that area for half an hour -after you spent 45 minutes in the cafe' and the camera orientation sensor shows it is on a tripod pointing in the direction of the field where the display will be held ...... not impossible to conceive is it ?
Or it might check your location and determine that you are in a museum and turn off all sounds and flash .....

Most of us don't want or need that kind of automation but the newer [and older] generation will embrace it .
The built in program and internet connection could work out that you are on the beach - a weather search could show that it is a clear sunny day and the orientation sensor could detect that you are pointing the camera slightly upwards at someone on the wharf next to you , as it has checked the location with google-earth , the 'content aware' program has detected the wharf which would be easier than face-detection [it will have read its description from a map as well] , and provide the exact compensation for the bright sky the meter will detect in the background .
It will be able to work out the position of the sun at that time of the day along with the direction you are pointing the camera and make the appropriate adjustments .
As it examines past images from google earth it will be able to determine the colour and reflectivity of the beach sand , some beaches have black sand and normal 'beach mode' would give incorrect results if an ill-informed beginner selects that mode in such a case . ASL mode will not be fooled by the fact that it is on a beach according to the GPS - it will have done its homework as soon as it was turned on and realized that the sand was still dark and it would know that it wouldn't need to increase exposure compensation .

Once it has determined its settings for the location and weather the live-view will be able to analyze the subject you are photographing . My Casio FH100 has an 'enter scene' mode that detects movement and takes pictures when something happens . It wouldn't be too hard to take that a step further and allow the camera to analyze the scene that is unfolding before it . It could lock-on to the stationery subjects , work out how much granny's hand is shaking , calculate the speed that the grand-kids are running at and then select a suitable shutter speed . If it detects no movement it would adjust accordingly and perhaps choose a smaller aperture considering the subject is most likely a landscape image .

Many compact now have automatic "help"[?] tips that show up on the screen . Imagine if you are photographing the afternoon sun going down , an internet search suggests that there is light rain in the area
but it is clear in the area where the sun is going down - a quick calculation regarding the angle of the sun and direction the camera is actually pointing ..... and the screen gives a beep and pops up on the display " Check for Rainbows behind you " ..... now when all their models of one brand are interlinked and registering "clicks" from other cameras around you there may even be an alert on the screen " something interesting happening 1km away " .

But there's also the possibility of something new that professionals might actually like .
The Nikon D300 came out with a networking capability so that perhaps 5 cameras could be wirelessly linked at an event so images could pop up on a laptop display as they are taken .
Imagine a serious photo-shoot , perhaps a wedding or news-worthy event . Many pro cameras have dual card slots so you can have back-up in case one card fails and loses all your images . Along with the wireless internet possibility imagine if your images could constantly be uploading at their full file size to the internet while you are photographing an event - your computer could be on at home busy downloading them at the same time . If needed your assistant could be busy processing those images while you are shooting and either sending them back to your camera for approval or preparing them for a slide-show of the days pictures at the wedding reception or racing event .

As with the internet itself these changes can and will introduce many problems of their own - that's what technology is all about though :)
They will have to make sure you are not in the middle of something important when the screen pops up " new firmware download available- start download ? " .

My latest photovan adventure

2010-09-08T23:40:00.000-07:00

I failed an attempt at sleeping in the snow due to not enough insulation under me .
The full story is on my photovan blog

And a few pictures from the trip with my Casio FH100 .....

And some from the D90

Turbo flash

2010-09-04T00:17:00.000-07:00

Warning : the capacitors in a camera flash can hold up to 600 volts which can kill you ! Don't attempt this if you don't know exactly what you are doing !

I recently did some experiments with an older flash to see how easy it would be to boost the output of a flash . I measured the voltage at the base of the flash and it was 220 volts . My D50 is rated at 250 volts so I put it on the camera and fired it . Not very impressive .

Then I took the old capacitor from my SB400 flash and joined the capacitor wires to that instead ...
Much brighter though it did take 5X as long to charge up , it only has one AAA battery in it .

I then tried a more controlled experiment to compare it to my SB800 flash .

Then I left the original capacitor in the flash and added two more to give it a boost .

That made it more powerful than my SB800 !

My thoughts are that since the capacitor is basically a small 'battery' it will only accept the voltage the charging system puts into it and adding more 'batteries' means the same voltage but a higher current so the flash tube can fire for longer .
As with any flash you wouldn't want to fire it at that power too often
because the tube could overheat but it's certainly handy to know that you could boost the output of a flash by adding a capacitor .
16/10/2010
I got hold of a 3500uf capacitor which is only about 4 1/2 X as powerful as a SB800 capacitor .
I wired it in parallel with the flash tube of my old Sunpak GT pro 4011 flash and tested its output compared to a full power blast from an SB600 .

It is considerably more powerful but I need to do some more tests with it to see how long the tube lasts . I imagine if it is anything like the duty cycle of a welder , for example , and the normal flash is capable of firing at full power 4 times in a minute then this would perhaps be able to fire once a minute for exactly the same heat build up . I suppose time will tell .

19/10/2011 .
This afternoon I decided to put the new "mutant" flash through its paces to see what it could do .
I fired it about 15-20 times all together without giving it much time to cool down .
I took a few shots to compare it to the SB800 on full power .Ignore the background getting brighter , it was raining and the sun was coming out again . Concentrate on the foreground and shadows .
I used the D50 because it can sync flash at any speed .

I had the "super-flash" on half power which was half the capacitors in the original flash plus the 3500uf cap I added .

Then I moved up the driveway to really put it to the test ....

I then moved to the top of the driveway . And tried at 1/3200th sec .

I would imagine the flash tube will last as it doesn't appear to have suffered any side effects .
"Full power " is when the other half of the capacitor bank inside the flash handle is also connected.

auto-fp flash

2010-09-03T01:25:00.000-07:00

First of all what is "fp"-flash and why do we need it ?
FP stands for "focal plane"[ see the definition on the link ] .
At slower shutter speeds [ I'll refer to the limits of the D90 from now on ] up to 1/200th sec there is enough time for the shutter to open and for the flash to fire before the shutter closes without any problems .
But as you move into faster speeds the shutter starts using a slit to increase speeds and this means that the flash would only fire during the first stage of that slit and not show again on the image since the flash fires in between 1/700th and 1/41600th sec [ SB800 ] .
Here's an example , taken with the D90 and an old SB24 flash - since they don't speak the same language the camera fired the flash at any speed I chose .

At 1/1000th sec we can see when the flash fired while the rest of the image is black since that is the slit we see at the top . If you use 1/1000th sec the shutter can't move fast enough to do that speed .
How fast can the shutter move ?
We'll choose an easy figure to work with here so let's say the shutter curtain can only complete the trip across the frame in 1/250th sec[4ms] , so if you want 1/1000th sec it has to move a slit 1/4 of the size of the screen across the frame [ 1/250th/4 = 1/1000th ] .
As we see from the results the flash fired so quickly , 1/11000th sec actually , that it only lights up that 1/4 of the frame and then it's over.

So if we need to use a faster shutter speed , usually when shooting outdoors in bright sunlight and wanting to use a wider aperture , the flash needs to "stay on" for the whole time that slit is moving .
The manufacturers achieve this by firing the flash in a series of very fast pulses so the flash essentially becomes a 'continuous light' for the duration of the shutter travel .

The problem is that much of this light is wasted on the back of the shutter curtain and only a small amount reaches the sensor through that slit which is the major disadvantage of auto-fp flash .... it loses a lot of power . That's the trade-off you pay for using higher shutter speeds than normal flash can handle .
How much power ?
We'll work off the 'sunny 16' rule [ On the brightest sunniest day if your iso and shutter speed are equal then you will be at F16 for correct exposure ] .
I set my camera to F16 iso 200 1/200th sec and the flash head tells me I have 5.0 metres working distance .
When I move into the higher speeds and fp mode the flash tells me I have 2.7 metres working distance at any setting that would give me an equivalent exposure for the ambient .
If F16 and 1/200th give us correct exposure then we would use perhaps F8 and 1/800th , F4 and 1/3200th etc .... For each increase in exposure via the aperture we decrease the exposure with the shutter speed so the ambient exposure is consistent .

Now since fp-flash behaves as a continuous light that should mean that in fp mode each equivalent exposure should give us the same results with the flash .
Actual tests prove different .

So why does the flash power drop off so rapidly and then climb again ?
It appears to be directly related to the concept of the focal plane shutter . Even though the shutter always moves at a constant speed , or more likely 'especially' since the shutter is 'limited' to a constant speed , the slower speeds means it takes longer to for the shutter to complete the exposure .

Here's an image taken at 1/250th which is faster than the limit of the D90 . At low power and fast flash speeds there is no problem but if we tried to fire at full power the shutter would start closing before the flash was finished it's output and give us a dark patch at the top .

So the first curtain opens in about 1/250th sec[4ms] , then the second curtain closes and takes another 1/250th sec[4ms] to complete the exposure .... 8ms in total .
When we take a picture at 1/1000th sec the slit is 1/4 as wide and therefore only takes another 1 ms to complete its travel [ 1/1000th = 1ms ] . At 1/4000th the slit is so thin that it takes 4ms plus 0.25ms for the entire exposure , and here's a graph of the relationship between shutter speed and "total shutter travel time ":

Notice something interesting ? On both graphs it levels out at about 1/2000th sec .
The only logical conclusion is that at slower shutter speeds auto-fp is limited to a lower power output to stay on for the longer time it takes for the second curtain of the shutter to complete its travel .

About 8.5 ms at 1/250th , compared to 5ms at 1/4000th [ it would have to come on slightly before and stay on until slightly after the shutter opens and closes ] This has recently been demonstrated by some tests on this blog . .
I am told that the graph will look quite different for a D700 and that the longest time for a D700 will be 4.5ms and the shortest time around 2.1ms . This would explain why similar tests done with a full frame camera show less power loss , the shutter moves much faster and the 'total shutter travel time' is shorter meaning that the flash can fire stronger for a shorter period of time .

So we learn from this that the nature of the focal plane shutter and how it works with fp flash means that the initial stages of fp mode , at the shutter speeds just past the flash's normal sync speed , give the lowest effective flash output .
Essentially it is the same amount of energy , only it is less power spread out over a longer time to accommodate the longer 'total shutter travel time' .
As we move into the faster shutter speeds we see an improvement due to the fact that the flash capacitor can be discharged over a shorter time allowing a higher output .
Think of it as a fast burning candle , at 1/250th we burn the candle which lasts 8ms . At 1/4000th we burn the same candle at both ends , it's twice as bright but lasts half as long .
With fx and a faster shutter travel we can almost start by burning the candle at both ends and advance to also burning it in the middle !
In practice this means that if you want to use a wider aperture don't think that staying closer to normal flash sync is going to put less strain on the system - it does the opposite so rather move as quickly as possible to the faster speeds when using fp mode .

You will have about half the working distance which is 2 stops less power using fp mode .
Initially though , you will lose around 3 stops of power at the slower fp speeds .

.

What is Fill-Flash?

2010-08-29T01:38:00.000-07:00

I've seen various opinions of what 'fill flash' is . My thoughts are that it is when the ambient is the main light source and you only want to lift the shadows with a small amount of flash .
As you underexpose the ambient and use more flash you start tending toward 'fill ambient' where the flash is the main light source and you 'drag the shutter' to expose some of the background as well .
So I just thought I'd share the graph I just made showing the relationship between exposure , TTL flash and TTL-BL flash since Nikon defines TTL-BL as "Balanced fill flash" .

.
As we see TTL flash maintains the same output regardless of where you have the ambient exposed - it doesn't know or care how well you have the ambient exposed - it thinks it is the only light source .
This is why we need to dial in more negative flash compensation when we use TTL flash and the subject is already properly exposed .
TTL-BL on the other hand 'watches the meter' and in situations where they meter evenly [ a centralized subject filling the middle of the frame ] TTL-BL will back off to the equivalent of TTL -1.7 stops to simply act as 'fill flash' .
As we under-expose the ambient TTL-BL steps in and starts to take over control of the exposure of the subject .
The graph I've shown is the result of some controlled tests I did using a flash meter to determine the difference in their output in varying situations .

2010-08-29T00:27:00.000-07:00

Ok well I've been doing more tests and calculations on the subject to try and figure out why we lose so much power as we start going into auto-fp mode and think I just worked it out .
Auto-fp flash logically must stay on for longer for slower shutter speeds .
Let's take 1/1000th sec first , the flash must start 'pulsing' before the first curtain opens - then it must last for 1/280th sec [ if that's how fast the curtain moves ] but once the first curtain reaches the other side it must stay open for the duration of the slit that still has to close !
At 1/1000th sec let's say that slit is 1/4 of the frame = another 1/1120th of a second.

Now we look closer at the slit at speeds closer to normal sync .
1/320th shows a much larger slit [ 3X the size of 1/1000th?]
Now after the first curtain moves across the frame [ 1/280th sec] the flash still has to remain on until the second curtain is closed which will now take 3X as long as at 1/1000th = 3/1120th = 1/370th sec extra !

This would explain why the first drop into auto-fp mode gives us so much less power than 1/2000th .
When I fire the SB24 at 1/16th on the D90 at 1/250th sec I don't see the curtain starting to close yet though sync speed is back at 1/200th .
This means that when the flash goes into fp mode it is doing so over 1/280th sec plus the 1/250th sec that the rear curtain takes to close cutting the total power in half [approximately ] .
So auto-fp would have to push out around half as much power over twice the time as opposed to around 1/250th sec shutter travel at 1/4000th sec - not counting the power before and after the pulse .

So essentially different shutter speeds would vary how long auto-fp stays on , and how much power it pushes out over that time period resulting in the differences we see between 1/250th and 1/2000th in auto-fp mode !

2010-08-28T20:49:00.001-07:00

another backward video :)

2010-08-27T22:48:00.001-07:00

auto-fp flash power tests

2010-08-27T20:06:00.001-07:00

This afternoon I did some tests to compare the power of auto-fp to normal flash . I used a solid white wall and kept the flash set at 1/1 full power and also made sure I kept the ambient level [which was very under-exposed ] the same , to simulate a situation where we would keep our ambient settings in the same place while reverting to auto-fp mode .
I aimed to get the same histogram in each shot and it was interesting how much difference a few cm made when I made adjustments .

This is what I aimed for :

After each change in settings I moved the camera until I got the same histogram and then measured the distance to the flash head so I could calculate the power difference compared to normal flash .

F25        1/200th normal flash               195cm
F22        1/250th auto-fp mode             68cm = 1/8th of normal flash power
F16        1/500th                                88cm =    1/5
F11        1/1000th                              120cm = 1/2.6
F8          1/2000th                              136cm = 1/2
F6.3       1/3200th                              120cm = 1/2.6
F5.6       1/4000th                              112cm = 1/3

My conclusion is that due to the way auto-fp works even though the flash head suggests the same working distance at any of these settings when in auto-fp mode it appears that the combination at 1/2000th sec yields the greatest output , after which the curve drops off again .
Since auto-fp flash behaves as a continuous light the slower the speed the more energy it requires ! So faster shutter speeds mean that light is 'switched on' for shorter times , not counting the short period before the shutter opens and after it closes that it will need to be on . This should also result in faster charge times .
In other words , when you revert to auto-fp mode stay away from the the slower speeds and aim for 1/2000th sec and the aperture that gets you the results you want to get the most flash power possible in this mode .

.
The results :

Auto-fp power loss

2010-08-25T11:57:00.000-07:00

I've read varying opinions on how much flash power you have in auto-fp flash mode at high shutter speeds .
This weekend I will devise a test to see what results I get .
The distance info reported on the flash head suggest you have a little over 25% of the power of normal flash [ 2 stops less ] but many are reporting 2.3 to 2.6 stops less power .

The force is with me :)

2010-08-21T22:17:00.001-07:00

New Casio FH100 compact

2010-08-14T19:19:00.000-07:00

I just bought a new compact - I wanted something easy to carry with a wide angle lens and after doing a little research ended up with the Casio EX FH100 with a 24 mm wide angle [ - 240mm tele ] and the ability to do high speed video .
I'm really enjoying this video mode !

Fuji F31fd high iso samples

2010-08-09T01:15:00.000-07:00

The last 6 meg camera made by Fuji still sets a standard for high iso from a compact . They used their brains back then and stayed at 6 meg but made a larger sensor for better light gathering .
Tonight I did some test images at varying iso's which shows why the newer 14 meg compact sensors still can't catch up - they have too many megapixels and the dots are so small they can't gather enough light at high iso's .

Unfortunately "megapixels sell" or rather "A lack of megapixels doesn't sell " so they have to keep making compacts with more megapixels because people think the bigger numbers mean better image quality and the manufacturers exploit this idea to make people think they need to replace their camera because a 'better' model with more megapixels must be better .....

These images are slightly underexposed which exaggerates their noise .

And a few with different lighting

Nightclub photography

2010-08-05T01:56:00.000-07:00

We all have different views on how things should be photographed - auto , manual , with flash , without flash - on camera flash , off camera flash .....
But basically whatever gets the results you want is the right way and "Jr" - 'Mike Petrie Jr' of nikoncafe has allowed me to copy and paste his thoughts and experiences on nightclub photography :

I wanna start off by saying I by no means consider myself a guru of nightclub shooting. This is just going to be some information that I've learned along the way and some of my techniques. Please feel free to contribute, ask questions or flat out disagree with me. I think this should be a good learning process for any and all involved.

Nightclubs - Starting off

Before you even step into a club, you need to be savvy with a camera. Your non-professional modes aren't going to get you far. Generally speaking, you're always or should always find yourself in manual mode. If words like aperture, shutter speed, ISO, exposure bias, etc... all seem like foreign vocabulary, I recommend picking up a few books and getting more hands on training before considering this. Understanding Exposure is a great book to start you off. The newest edition can be found on Amazon.

Equipment

Camera Body

Shooting in a dark club is difficult, walking in and using on board flash, a D40 and a kit lens may seem fine - but it's going to be a stressful night. Don't get me wrong, you can "make it work" if you know what you're doing... but your pictures are going to be noisy, flash exposure will be poor and your shots won't look very professional. The better your camera deals with noise and high ISOs, the better your pictures will be without needing to spend tons of time post editing. You don't need to be shooting FX (it wouldn't hurt) but I recommend at least using a camera that has an internal motor.

Lenses

The faster, the better. The wider, the better. For the most part, you won't be shooting wide open, but being able to work with a fixed aperture throughout the focal range makes life A LOT easier and having the capability of dialing down to f/2.8 is always a plus. If you have the itch to shoot prime, make sure it's wide. That nifty fifty won't do you much good in a tight club. I rarely even use my 35mm f/2.
*For DX cameras, I recommend something beginning around the 17mm or 18mm range. I personally shoot with a 3rd party Tamron 17-50 2.8. FX shooters, I hear the 24 - 70mm f/2.8 works wonders in the club.

Flash

Lighting is THE MOST important aspect of club photography (in my opinion). Invest in at least one flash unit. There are many different techniques for shooting clubs and utilizing Nikon lighting, but that will be covered later in the thread. For now, you need to understand that some sort of flash unit is essential.

Extras

Pick up a lens hood and a filter for your lens. I call it "the drunk guard". You'd be surprised how much that small investment will help you out in the long run from people smashing into you and spilling drinks.

The basics - Every club is different, but here are general club settings.

Shutter Speed

I tend to shoot anywhere from 1/2 - 1/40th depending on the club and effect I'm trying to achieve. Dragging the shutter is very common in clubs so that you pull the right amount of ambient light into your lens. If you shoot too fast, your subject(s) will look like they are in a dark room... that's kinda boring.

Aperture

As a general rule of thumb, when shooting with my flash unit, my aperture stays between 4.5 - 5.6 respectively. This DOES vary, but this is a nice starting ground.

ISO

More expensive Nikons handle light sensitivity better than others. I keep my D90 between 500 - 800 depending on my shutter speed. I've heard of FX users shooting much higher in their camera's ISO range.

Flash/Exposure Bias/Flash Power

Good luck. This will change every few minutes if you have a lot of strobes and are flipping from portrait to landscape style shots. There are SO man factors that play into these adjustments... the list is endless. One thing I can recommend is a diffuser.

A diffuser will soften light - the pure physics of something sitting between a light source and it's projected path will obviously scatter or hinder the light output in someway (think of clouds) and in turn will help your pictures. The biggest problem with a flash unit (on the hot shoe) is having such an intense amount of light coming from one super small area/on the same plane as your lens, so it's always going to have a little bit of the deer in headlight effect.

Now, shooting on the hot shoe is pretty normal and economical in these types of settings. I say economical because room is sometimes really tight. If you're shooting portrait on the shoe, you're going to get some type of side shadow no matter what you do. Even if you have a Gary Fong or some type of fancy shmancy diffuser, the location of the light source is still going to be coming from the side of the camera, period.

If you want to shoot with your flash in your hand, you have three options. Get yourself a TTL cord or wireless trigger and fire the flash that way. You'll still get to use your precious AF on flash assist light if it's not a slave. Another option is mounting a more expensive Nikon flash (SB 800 +) on your hot shoe and firing another flash in slave mode in your other hand. This is a great option - but a pain in a hot crowded club. Lastly, shooting Nikon commander is always an option... but you don't get to use the luxury AF assist light on your flash unit. You need to depend on the in camera illuminator. Womp Womp.

So, how do you fix harsh portrait sidelights with a single flash? Answer = flash bracket.

Post Production

Do yourself a favor, shoot in JPEG. Raw is incredible, but after thumbing through 200+ photos a night and not be able to batch process... you will be hating your job.

2010-07-29T23:56:00.001-07:00

Just a demonstration of what a capacitor in a flash can do ....

My Letter to George

2010-07-27T23:24:00.000-07:00

Hi George , so someone advised you to spend over $3000 on a D700 and prime lenses , that you don't even need or know how to use , when you stated that your budget was $400 ..... "to save you money" ! ?
Perhaps that's why they say " How do you make a small fortune in photography ? ..... start with a large fortune !"
Did this guy have one eye bigger than the other , head tilted to the side , drool out one side of his mouth and a twitching eye-lid ? Perhaps a "Nikon rep" card on his jacket ? Just kidding , he probably meant well but he made some huge assumptions that you would
1.) stay with your hobby for a long time ,
2.) actually want to go full frame ,
3.) be prepared to sell one of your kidneys to finance the purchase or go into debt , and
4.) be willing to lug around a heavy camera with two lenses that he likes rather than perhaps what may be right for your needs .
[ To be honest I wouldn't swap my D90 and 18-200VR lens for a D700 with any prime lens - that's a personal preference though ]

My advice - for $400 you could get a good used Nikon D50 and 18-55mm lens plus perhaps a used SB24 flash that will give you good image quality and superior flash synch speeds to a D700 and the equivalent of 6X the flash power of a D700 in high-fp mode using what I call realsynch flash . Until you understand what the heck I am talking about it is pointless for you to get a D700 unless by some unlikely chance you will start making money from low-light photography in a few weeks.
The D50 is 6 megapixels which is more than enough for most of us -[ they printed a 3 storey high image from 12 meg ], has decent high iso performance and the 18-55 lens will provide you with a reasonable wide angle for landscapes along with a usable 55 mm at the long end .
Think about it , if you buy that D700 brand new it will be worth less than half what you paid for it after three years . The used D50 will still get you at least half what you paid for it in that time and you will only have lost $200 for its use compared to $3200 plus the interest you would have to pay on the loan along with insurance costs of the D700 kit [ perhaps $3500 total ?] .
Invest in last year's technology , don't waste money on today's latest gadgets unless you are making a living from your hobby . When these companies bring out a new sensor it goes into their latest pro camera . After they resolve the initial teething problems with the camera they release a semi pro model with an improved sensor . Then they bring out the advanced-amateur version with further refinements . lastly they bring out a beginners camera with a perfected sensor while they release a sensor with more [unnecessary] megapixels in their latest pro body .... and repeat the process .
You end up with a camera like the D40 with a 6 meg sensor and image quality that puts the first professional 6 meg cameras to shame ..... while everyone clambers for the latest 10 meg sensor with all it's new teething problems - and someone wants you to buy a D700 as a beginner ?
The sad fact is that there are still professional photographers out there that seem to believe the latest gear takes better pictures while the reality is that you can do a lot with an entry level camera and nobody will know what camera the image was taken with anyway .
So my advice is to get the used D50 kit , learn to use it and as you advance you will know where you want to go from there - whether you need to spend more money on newer gear or still need to learn the basics .
Maybe next year you can buy a good used D90 from someone who upgrades because their D90 "doesn't take good pictures" , if your finances allow for it . If the D50 is still serving you well invest in lenses rather than another body , they maintain their value .
Take advantage of the people that seem to think they need a D700 to start with and then sell it cheap later because they either aren't interested in the hobby any more or realize how hard it is to make money from photography .
Buy the old technology cheap and cut your losses .Who knows , maybe in 5 years time if you are still keen on it the D700 will cost you $400 :) .

The glowing filament shot

2010-07-17T00:55:00.001-07:00

I only had one clear bulb and hit it a little too hard ....

Glowing filament

2010-07-13T02:23:00.000-07:00

Tonight I wired a soldering iron in series with the flash capacitor and light bulb .
Now I have a more subtle glow that I can control easier when I do my next set of 'breaking light bulbs' shots .

If I work at iso 200 and F16 this is the glow I will get .

17 July 2010 .
I bought some cheap light bulbs but unfortunately they only had frosted bulbs . I managed one ok shot with the one clear bulb I had .

and a few of the frosted bulbs ....

The Flash-bulb

2010-07-12T02:08:00.000-07:00

Previously when I was taking high speed images of breaking light bulbs a few people mentioned that they would look better with a glowing filament .

Tonight I opened an older flash and un-soldered the wire from the capacitor to the flash tube and wired it in series with a 220 volt light bulb . The red wires and dotted red line show where it used to be connected .
When I have the old flash on low output the flash fires weakly but there is no response from the filament .
When I switch it over to high power I get a reaction - but a little too much . I need to get the right amount of power to have the filament glowing without blowing out the exposure .

More 'experiments ' to follow :)

15 minutes later and I had opened another older flash with thyristor control - in the hopes that I could get the flash to turn off sooner for a dimmer glow . Not to be !
I faced the sensor toward a white surface to help it detect the flash and hopefully turn off quickly . It still gave out too much power .
At first I was confused as to why the optic flash trigger would not fire this flash but then I remembered that when I checked its trigger voltage it was "-8 v" , the earth pin was in the centre which was not normal - the electronics of the optic trigger could not switch a 'backward voltage' .

13/07/2010
Tonight I ran the wiring through a soldering iron as well to waste some of the energy . Now I have a controllable glow that will look right at iso200 and F16 .

This 'diagram' shows the path of the the current flowing through the circuit . The blue lines show where the wires were originally connected . The lower blue wire was cut and connected to the red clip going into the soldering iron . The current flows through the soldering iron and back down through the black clip which is connected to one of the terminals of the light bulb . The circuit is completed as it flows back from the other terminal and through the flash tube . Each item represents a volt drop of some sort and the coil of the soldering iron probably adds an inductance to slow things down a bit . The voltage drop across the light is just enough for a light glow and the rest of the energy is wasted in the soldering iron and across the flash tube .

17 July 2010 .
I bought some cheap light bulbs but unfortunately they only had frosted bulbs . I managed one ok shot with the one clear bulb I had .

and a few of the frosted bulbs ....

24 July 2010 .
I got hold of 10 clear light bulbs finally . I tried various 'devices' to destroy them and got some pretty decent results .

and a couple with the sword ....

And then I noticed my axe leaning up against the wall and decided to do a few with it .

Perhaps when I get exactly what I want I will spend some time processing the images to look better but I would really like to get it right in camera rather :)

Analyzing Canon ETTLii

2010-07-09T02:40:00.000-07:00

These two images submitted on a NZ forum interest me [ ETTLii ]

That's a little crazy ! When you focused on the white object toward the front it exposed pretty well considering the subject was highly reflective .
But when you focused on the object behind it , a black object at a greater distance it under-exposed in comparison ?
The way I see it , one option is that for the background focus the camera did not register focus confirmation or it exposes any out of focus objects as average grey regardless of where they are and in this case the white object fooled the meter - strange ?

Update : I was just informed that the second shot was in fact manual focus and the camera did not confirm 'focus lock' which means we are back to square one - the point where we worked out that ETTLii drops the distance info and resorts to average gray metering when it doesn't confirm a focus lock- regardless of how far the subject is behind the white object .

Two more tests , this time auto-focus locked .... almost identical histograms due to the distance info being used .

I don't see any sense in Canon dropping the distance info when there is no focus-lock . I mean if a subject
is so badly out of focus why bother with changing the equation anyway ? If it is only out by a small percentage and could be a keeper when why not use the distance info anyway for a more accurate exposure ?

Canon vs Nikon flash studies .

2010-07-06T22:24:00.000-07:00

As of 7 July 2010 I am inviting test shots from Canon users to try to 'reverse engineer ' Canon's flash system in a similar way to what I did with Nikon TTL-BL mode .
So far Stefan on photocamel has provided me with these images from the 7D and a 430 EX flash and the results are interesting .
Test 1.)

The histograms of both the 'near' focus and 'far' focus both went down instead of the 'far' focus increasing exposure as with TTL-BL mode . I was expecting the distance info from the lens to tell the flash system to increase output when the focus was changed to infinity but the opposite happened ?
Perhaps when the camera doesn't detect anything in focus it reverts to plain "average gray" metering for the flash ?
Now we are in the really early stages of doing these tests and nothing has been double checked by others yet so I still welcome input . I would like to go through all the tests as shown in my TTL-BL blog to see what we can work out and compare Canon and Nikon flash systems just for interest and for those who would like to learn the 'nuts and bolts' of the systems .

This is how Nikon's TTL-BL handled the situation .

When the flash system detected that focus distance was at its maximum it increased exposure without showing too much regard for the out of focus white in the foreground .
Compared to what Canon ETTLii does for the moment I see this as an advantage .
There are probably very few people who use manual focus indoors but for anyone who does manually select a focus distance the Canon flash system will instantly lose any advantage distance information from the lens would have given it if the camera doesn't agree that anything is in focus .
However with the run of problems with canon auto-focus who know what the camera may deem to be 'in-focus' ;) .

So the question now is " Does Canon ETTLii totally drop the distance information when it doesn't detect 'focus confirmation ?"
Anyone interested in doing the tests , this is the scenario we need :
Test 2.)

Please excuse the creepy looking baby but "Stinky" was my model back then .
Have a white object close to the camera and covering half the frame . Place the subject next to the reflector , take a picture , and then quite a distance behind it and take some pictures .
Nikon's TTL-BL ignored the white object and concentrated on what was in focus at the right distance .
Then set focus on infinity and take another picture .
This will tell us if ETTLii uses the lens distance info when the subject is in focus and whether it totally drops it if it does not confirm focus on a distance object .

I'll list the tests I would like samples of for those interested in participating , we'll call this test number 3.)

A comparison between TTL and ETTLii with a black and white subject and varying degrees of 'centrality' of the subject .... like this ....

The point of this test is to show how TTL meters differently to ETTLii . Normal TTL meters off a central circle while ETTLii should meter almost equally for the white subject as long as part of it is under the focus points . if the white leaves the focus point 'diamond' then it will probably blow out .
The metering pattern sits under the focus points and , if it can select the size of the subject it meters off like TTL-BL , should give reasonably consistent results compared to TTL flash .

Another way of doing this test is with a black circle on a white background ... my D40 has 3 focus points .

As you can see the focus point diamond plays a very important role in how TTL-Bl meters .... how does canon flash compare ?

Test 4.) A basic test that should give the same results in TTL and ETTLii mode .
Take a picture indoors where it is dark . iso 100 , F16 and 2 seconds [ the ambient must still be underexposed ] , use rear-curtain flash . Put your hand in front of the flash and take the picture - as you press the shutter the pre-flash will fire on your hand ..... move your hand away before the main flash fires - just before the shutter closes .... it should fire brighter than normal since it couldn't detect the pre-flash reading .
Something like this ......

Test 5.) This is where it gets a little more complicated .
Set up your camera in manual on a tripod [ as you should have been doing ] . Take a picture of a subject with the ambient under-exposed by 4 stops using TTL mode and then in ETTLii mode .
they should look similar .
Then with the camera in manual mode still find the point where the meter shows correct exposure .
Take another picture in TTL mode and ETTLii mode . Most likely the picture in TTL mode will be much brighter than ETTLii which should register the fact that you have the ambient correctly exposed and compensate by backing off the flash .

Test 6.) [Similar to test 5 ] Slightly more complicated .

Find a situation where CW metering and pattern metering give different readings - look at the following images ....

What we are trying to do in this test is establish how ETTLii decides how well you have the ambient metered . With TTL-BL the evidence suggests that TTL-BL is 'watching the meter ' and as soon as the meter moves to show underexposure the flash output increases to compensate - even if the the settings haven't changed !
I was told that TTL-BL measures the 'RAW data' to determine what the lighting is like .... obviously this can't be the way it does it because regardless of what the light looks like the final exposure depends on the settings you have chosen and how you decide to expose the image .
So : Find a setting similar to my example where CW and Pattern metering give different readings . Set the camera so you are correctly exposed for the one mode and when you change to the other mode you get under-exposure [ according to the meter ] . Take a picture with ETTLii at 'correct' exposure and then simply switch to the other exposure mode , that tells you it is now underexposed , and without changing any other settings take another picture with ETTLii and see if the output has changed .

These images were submitted recently - both taken with a lens that does not provide distance information ....
The histograms are almost identical showing that the flash output was the same even though the focus distance changed - obviously ETTLii couldn't use distance info in the equation .

There was a difference in the images when manual focus was used and the camera did not confirm a focus-lock .... it then appears to simply expose for average gray on the brightest object in the scene .

Fake high speed photography

2010-07-06T00:51:00.000-07:00

Tonight I was feeling creative but didn't have too much time . I set up the sound activated flash trigger wired to two Nikon SB800 flashes set at 1/128th power . They fire at 1/41000th sec at this power .
Then I put my subjects on a wooden table and hit it from beneath with a hammer .....

It's nothing amazing but to someone who doesn't know how it was done it could look like really high speed photography :)

Flash : Yongnuo RF-602 wireless transmitter

2010-07-04T01:46:00.000-07:00

Today I tested my new Yongnuo RF602 wireless flash transmitter , this is what you get in the package .

When you look at the instructions you feel like contacting the manufacturers and asking them " Who learned you to spoke english so deliciously ? "

This is a close up view of the transmitter and receiver

Apparently the two back contacts aren't connected to anything inside which either means they are only there to make it look more 'functional' or perhaps they are there because the next model [maybe the "903's"] will have TTL functionality !

It was also suggested that they may just be for other cameras and the wiring gets connected for the brand you choose .

There are contacts so you can use them to trigger the shutter release of some cameras at 100m .

Then I set up the tripod with my old SB24 so I could test the fastest trigger time
[ which they advertise as being 1/250th sec - mainly because that's the fastest time most cameras can synch flash ] , and the furthest distance it could work at .

I used the D50 because it has an electronically switched sensor/shutter so it can synch flash at 1/500th sec normally and if it doesn't know there is a flash connected - as with a wireless trigger - there is no limit to the shutter speed you can use with flash .
I explain this in my blog on realsynch flash
Standing next to the flash I managed to trigger it at 1/800th second .

Then I took a walk across the farm and managed to trigger that flash from positions 1 , 2 and 3 . With position 3 I had gone out of range and had to walk back to that point to trigger the flash again ..... BUT : I could trigger the flash wirelessly at 1/800th sec from each of these positions .

And these are the results from those positions , all at 1/800th sec !
Tamron 17-50mm lens at 50mm .

I ran and took 96 large strides to get back so perhaps it is more than 100m .

As another test I took I went to the milking shed and placed the tripod with the flash on it behind a metal door and between two large metal tanks to make it as difficult as possible . The flash still fired ! I think that's covered every possibility that I could come up against at any distance I could need it to work at .

As a side issue we were discussing the possibility of transmitting wireless TTL on nikoncafe . This has been done with the radiopoppers but we also spoke about the fact that the RF 602's wake up the SB800 flash from standby mode with a half press of the button but can't wake the SB600's and won't let the SB900's go into sleep mode so we did some measuring and this is what mike66 of nikoncafe came up with ....

" Here is what I found on the left rear contact of the speedlights. When active, each contact had a DC component with a negative going square wave pulse. When in standby, the contact was zero Volts.

SB-900:
3.75V DC with a negative pulse of 40mV. The pulse width is 8ms and the period is 130ms.
SB-800:
4.00V DC with a negative pulse of 100mV. The pulse width is 8ms and the period is 250ms.

SB-600:
4.00V DC with a negative pulse of 80mV. The pulse width is 60ms and the period is 260ms.
The SB-800 had another interesting surprise on the front right contact, which neither of the other speedlights shared. When the speedlight was active, this contact had a positive going square wave pulse train of 2.5V. The pulse width is 2.5ms and the period is 250ms. When the SB-800 went into standby, the voltage on this contact was zero with no pulse train. "

As we learn more about the RF 602 wireless flash triggers perhaps we will find a way to make them work properly with the SB600 and SB900 . Perhaps Yongnuo will just make the next product work properly ? They probably took a D200 and SB800 and reverse engineered the contacts thinking that it would work with any flash . For now anyway they are still a pretty powerful product considering what they can do compared to other cheaper flash triggers .

Flash : "Realsynch flash "

2010-07-04T01:21:00.001-07:00

I'll state from the beginning : This will only work with a Nikon D40 , D50 or D70/S since they do not have a focal plane shutter , instead the sensor fires electronically which gives it the advantage of capturing the whole flash in one go as opposed to a slit moving across the frame as with Focal Plane [FP] shuters .

First off two samples to whet your appetite comparing what I call "realsynch" to the high-FP trick mode that modern cameras use in bright sunshine with high shutter speeds .
This is the best a Nikon D90 and SB800 can do at a distance of 5 metres ....
taken indoors at night .

And this is what "realsynch" does ....

I used a modified SB24 flash for my "realsynch" flash . Because the cameras mentioned fire electronically with their sensors they have a 1/500th flash synch speed meaning that since the SB800 , for example , fires at full power for around 1/1000th of a second the camera will be able to capture that entire flash in 1/500th of a second without any overlap in the timing of the electronics .
With a D90 this time is only 1/200th of a second and after that it changes to FP mode where the shutter slides across the frame in a slit - then it has to resort to a weak continuous light so the whole frame receives the same amount of light .... more on that later .

First we have to make sure the D40/50/70/S we are using doesn't know there is a flash connected and there are two options , either slide a piece of paper under the two back pins as you slide the flash into the hotshoe or do what I did - open the base of the flash and cut the two wires to the back two pins -BUT : be careful of high voltages , you could get zapped !
Now if you have an SB600/800/900 the paper trick is the safest if you are not 100% sure of what you are doing , also you don't want to damage a newer flash .
And this is a picture I took a while back to show the flash pins .

The centre pin gets earthed to the 'ground' contact on the side of the hotshoe when the camera wants it to fire . The single pin at the top is the 'camera to flash' communication pin .
The two at the bottom are for the flash to communicate with the camera so I disconnect them so the camera doesn't know the flash is connected and can't default to maximum synch speed .
In any case it doesn't speak the same language as the newer cameras so I have found that with my D40 and D50 I can fit an older flash without bypassing or blocking any of the pins and it still works at any speed , however I can't guarantee that there won't be any mis-communication between the camera and flash so I generally use my SB24 with the wires cut ....
I leave the one at the top connected because it is useful in that you can switch the SB24 to "standby " mode and when the camera is switched on that pin wakes the flash up - so the flash knows a camera is connected but the camera doesn't know a flash is connected !
Of course this means you have to input the aperture , iso and zoom of the head manually - but you can still leave the flash in 'auto' mode and it will use its sensor to control the flash output accordingly - based on the settings you have told it to use .
The advantage ? Well you can see that from the two pictures at the top ! Just a warning about the electrics in a flash ....

If we go by the 'sunny 16' rule : Bright sunlight at F16 gives you iso 200 and 1/200th max for the D90 . The SB800 tells me I have 2.7 metres working distance at this setting but when I open the aperture - F8 1/800th , F4 1/3200th ... the flash has to go to high fp mode and tells me I have 1.4 metres working distance .
Now the SB24 : F16 on the D50 allows me 1/500th sec at iso 500 , full power - which gives me 4 metres . f8 iso 200 1/800th full power is cutting it a bit fine to prevent overlap but as we drop in flash power it fires much faster . At 1/4 power it fires at 1/2700th sec and at 1/8 it fires at 1/5500th sec so at F4 1/3200th and iso 200 I can leave it on 1/4 and still catch a high percentage of the flash and have 4 metres working distance .
These distances are at 24mm wide angle on the zoom head and increase [ on both flashes ] as I zoom in and the power used would be enough to light a subject in total darkness as shown by the first two pictures . Of course outside in bright sunlight we would not need all that power and could use the flash as fill only , bounce it off a reflector , or close the aperture without changing the settings on the flash thereby fooling the flash to think it doesn't need to fire so strong [ increasing the iso setting on the flash will also reduce its power ] .
Here are two more pictures illustrating the power you have outside in bright sunlight .
Just remember one thing though , you have so much power available you may need to make sure you don't get too close to your subject/s since the flash may not be able to fire weak enough !

Now the 'rough' maths . Due to the inverse square law when you are twice as far from the subject - the light from the flash going forward in a 'rectangular' pattern means that the length and breadth of that 'rectangle' double and twice the length times twice the breadth = 4 times the area . So if you are getting twice the working distance it actually means you have 4 times the flash power ! The results may not agree 100% with the maths but they look close enough to prove that there is a huge advantage in 'realsynch' compared to high-fp mode .
So if the SB800 tells me I have 1.4 metres working distance and the SB24 tells me I have 4 metres then 4/1.4 = 2.85 X the working distance . 2.85 squared gives just over 8X the power !
That's 3 stops more powerful than a D90 and SB800 combination achieved with a lowly D40 and SB24 flash !
After doing some tests in manual mode without flash to get the same histograms as the first pictures [ not 100% but close ] it appears I am getting 2 1/3 to 2 2/3 stops more power than high fp mode .
I just did some calculations on the difference between normal flash and High fp on the SB800 , hopefully they are correct ;
When I set my camera manually to iso 200 , F16 and 1/200th sec the flash tells me I have 0.6-2.7 metres working distance available . As I take it to F8 1/800th or F4 1/3200th it goes into high-fp mode and tells me I have 0.6-1.4 metres . Now 2.7m/1.4m gives us 1.928X the distance . 1.928 squared tells us we have 3.72X the flash power when we are not in high-fp mode .
1/3.72 = 0.2688 which is the power we have in fp mode compared to normal flash mode .
That's less than 27% of normal flash power with a D90 and SB800 flash , when in high-fp mode .
At iso 100 and 35mm the SB800 has a GN of 38m and the SB24 a GN of 36m . By my calculations the SB24 has less than 90% of the power of a SB800 .
But when we start comparing "realsynch" to high fp mode the SB24/D40 combination has almost 8X more power at higher shutter speeds due to the faster flash synch speed !

Today I did some tests to try to turn "day into night " .
First a picture without flash .

Under expose the background by increasing the shutter speed ...

And with the D40 , [35mm 1.8 lens] and SB 24 we still have enough power at 4 meters to make the picture look like a bad 'direct flash' shot at night !

Flash : Nikon's "New" TTL-BL

2010-07-04T01:18:00.001-07:00

{ "New" since the D100 that is , but the wrong information is still circulating so I thought I would provide an update :) The official site for TTL/BL is good for cameras released in the 80's and 90's }

Note: There are many similarities between TTL-BL and Canon's E-TTLii so much of this is comparable .

Short version :- " The 'new' TTL/BL selectively meters off the focus point diamond and exposes for the brightest object in that area , taking ambient into account regardless of the background . The subject does not need to be central , it does not need a bright background to work ".

Long version : -
First of all why should you care about how TTL/BL works if you only use TTL flash ?
For one thing your built in speedlight works and meters in TTL/BL mode .
The SB400 defaults to TTL/BL mode . Note : When using forward flash with the SB400 , SB800 and the built in speedlight no compensation should be needed as the distance info is being used .
And as soon as you start using Nikon's wireless flash features in "TTL" mode it is actually using TTL/BL [minus the distance info] whether you like it or not and that is a good thing as I'll explain later [ basically because it is a superior metering system to TTL ]

The confusing part is the manual that suggests that TTL/BL tries to balance the subject with the background - that's only true for cameras older than the D200 . This means it measures the back-lighting and determines how much flash to add to the subject to make it as bright as the background . The manual's description is so ambiguous that it has even caught out top photographers . In a popular book on flash the author , who uses Nikon flash extensively , makes the incorrect statement "It means the camera is now in balance mode , trying with all its might to make the foreground and background roughly equivalent exposure zones " ... his description of the results shows that he thinks the flash will try to light the background as well as the subject . This statement is totally wrong and what he doesn't realize is that when he is using wireless CLS he is in fact using TTL/BL mode so his advice not to use TTL/BL is contradictory !

The correct term for the newer cameras is "balanced fill flash" which doesn't care about the background , it concentrates on correct exposure of the subject taking ambient "on the subject" into account and compensating accordingly - REGARDLESS OF THE BACKGROUND ! .

I did my tests with a Nikon D40 and 18-105VR lens and a Nikon D90 with a Tamron 17-50 F2.8 . This model lens [Tamron 17-50 ] has been known to give incorrect distance info - my copy gave equal results to the 18-105 lens so it must be good !
My tests were duplicated by Mike who is an ex-pro photographer and software engineer using his D3 and D300 . His two cameras varied quite a bit in TTL flash mode but gave consistent results in TTL/BL+1/3 according to his tests .

First we need to get get some myths out of the way . There are many sites out there stating that

1.) the subject needs to be central , and
2.) you need some ambient for the flash to balance with .
Those statements are as obsolete as a D100 because that is generally the model camera/time-period that it applies to . So those statements are correct for anything older than a D200 but after that they are wrong !

I've done a series of tests where I break down the different 'elements' of TTL/BL flash compared to TTL flash and dismiss these myths that are so widespread .
In summary before you view the results this is my conclusion :
1.) TTL flash only uses the matrix or Centre Weighted pattern , whichever you select , for its metering so the subject needs to be central or you need to use '' flash value " lock when recomposing .
TTL/BL uses the FOCUS POINT DIAMOND as well which makes it superior . I have not seen it overexpose unless all the focus points are on a black subject . Even if one focus point is on a white subject it will make the blacks 'black" as they should be while TTL would try to brighten them .
2.) TTL flash is similar to normal camera metering in that if there is a dark background or a lot of black it overexposes by concentrating on brightening the shadow areas .
TTL/BL concentrates on the lighter areas and tries to preserve highlights mainly with 'pure bounce and no forward flash . This often leads to under-exposure when there is a lot of white in the background and good exposure if there is a lot of black in the background - setting the flash to TTL/BL + 1/3 fixes a lot of this and produces a much more consistent batch of pictures that might only need a slight tweak of the levels to be good compared to TTL which often clips highlights beyond recovery .
3.) When you use Nikon's CLS "creative lighting system" wireless flash the camera/flash defaults to TTL/BL which is another nail in the coffin of the theory that you need ambient for TTL/BL to work [ on newer cameras that is ] .
4.) TTL thinks it is the only light source which is why you need varying degrees of compensation in daylight and cloudy weather .
TTL/BL also takes the camera's metering for the ambient into account and then adds the amount of flash it deems necessary for a correct exposure .

I'll start with these pictures ...

They prove that TTL/BL does not use the centre of the frame , it does not need ambient to balance with [ it was taken at night ] and as long as the subject is under the focus point diamond , not necessarily the active focus point , TTL/BL will do its best to preserve highlights - and it also means that you don't need to use Flash value lock " FV lock " . It also shows that when you use wireless 'TTL' the camera meters the same as TTL/BL !
TTL , on the other hand , is a simple exposure based on the centre of the frame , it does not use the focus points in its calculations and doesn't care how much ambient already exists , so you need to be able to use negative compensation more often when using TTL . TTL/BL does this for you .

An interesting aspect of TTL/BL is that it uses the focus distance from your lens to calculate direct flash exposure , as well as the TTL reading . Try this experiment , take a flash picture with direct flash [ We avoid direct flash when possible but it is useful in bright sunlight ] .
Then manually move the focus distance and watch the flash exposure change !

Then try this , take a 'normal ' picture in TTL/BL mode [ or TTl for that matter ]

Now try again but block the pre-flashes using second curtain and 2 seconds exposure [ as in the first picture ] then move your hand away before the flash fires .....

This proves that TTL/BL uses focus distance with direct flash but also takes the TTL reading into account .

When the subject is central there is not much difference between TTL and TTL/BL but when a tricky situation arises , like a highly reflective subject , TTL/BL shines above TTL because it also uses the focus point diamond for its metering even though tilting the flash head lessens the effect of the distance info it receives , the extra info from the focus point diamond gives it that edge . [ It ''maps out'' the subject and rejects bright highlights 'recognizing them as reflections ' ]

As you can see I have found that TT/BL + 1/3 gives me a much more consistent exposure than plain TTL flash . When there is a lot of white in the frame TTL/BL +1.3 has a certain 'consistency' as you can see in the link at the top right in my "TTL/BL consistency theory "

It would appear from my tests that TTL flash [ and TTL metering ] looks more at the shadows and darker areas and tries to light them sometimes resulting in blown highlights while TTL/BL uses the focus points and tries to control highlights often resulting in slight underexposure which in fact results in more 'keepers' because it is easier to tweak the levels up than recover blown highlights ! [ As mentioned simply using TTL/BL+1/3 gives a better average than plain TTL ]

I'll be doing more tests with wireless flash but so far it is evident from my results that when using wireless flash and "TTL" mode the flash is in fact resorting to TTL/BL metering using the superior focus point info as well . [ compare this to the first two pictures ] .

The focus point theory ? Have a look at these pictures - [my D40 only has three focus points .]
All focus points on the black surface ....

Then I slowly moved until just one focus point was touching the white surface - it's not the in-camera metering ! I have tried this in many situations .

As long as the focus point 'diamond' finds contrast the meter does its best to preserve highlights resulting in slight underexposure when there is white in the scene but it remains consistent so one flash exposure compensation covers you .

Here's an extreme example of what I am talking about - since the white area was small and in shadow it wasn't as if it spot metered that area but it shows how well the system 'manages' differences in contrast .

I eventually worked out a test to illustrate the concept of TTL/BL compensating for the ambient . Basically TTL/BL doesn't really know what the ambient is , it relies on the meter reading from the exposure mode you have selected which is important to remember - I'll show you why ...

Since many people shoot in manual mode when using flash I thought I would illustrate the concept by having an off centre subject to exaggerate the issue a bit . First I set the meter to zero in matrix metering and took a picture using TTL/BL and bounce flash . It fired rather weakly because the meter told it the subject was already correctly exposed .

Then I changed to centre weighted metering and the meter said "+1" with regard to exposure but the flash output stayed the same ....[ note : I never changed any settings besides metering mode ]

It doesn't seem to care if you want to over-expose the subject with the ambient - it fires the same strength by the look of the results .

Now I increase the shutter speed , still in centre weighted metering mode so that the meter goes back to zero - the background changes but the flash output stays the same ....

Now see what happens when I simply change the metering mode - all the settings were the same as the previous shot in this picture except for the fact that I changed to matrix metering and suddenly the meter showed "-1" because matrix metering is strongly weighted toward the active focus point - which was on the doll .... TTL/BL responded by firing one[?] stop brighter !

So ...... it would appear from this test that TTL/BL uses the focus point diamond for its pre-flash reading and watches the built in meter to see what your shutter speed setting is doing with the ambient . Matrix metering decided the subject was under-exposed when we moved the focus point , the camera told the flash the meter was saying "-1" and the flash decided it needed to fire stronger .
That would mean that in a rather round-about way its output is affected by the shutter speed you select but that reading will also be affected by the metering mode you have chosen and its characteristics in different situations . If you are in an auto mode outdoors TTL/BL will always fire weakly [ Although if the subject is back-lit it will equalize it with the background lighting and fire accordingly ] - once you are in manual mode , the metering mode you have selected will affect how strongly TTL/BL fires as it watches your meter to determine where you have the ambient exposure .
Once you are indoors , F5.6 iso 200 1/30th sec for example , the ambient will show up as so badly under-exposed that TTL/BL will realize it is the only light source and push out the required amount of flash .
It has been confirmed that the 'new' TTL-BL is programmed into the newer camera bodies to recognize when the ambient is so far under-exposed that flash must be the only light source - The camera body lies to the flash and tells it "the background is perfect , just do the same with the subject " .

Now on to wireless CLS which is easier to understand once you know how TTL/BL meters - because wireless CLS uses TTL/BL by default !

I set up my model " Stinky " with a black background and had one SB800 to my left on channel 3a and the other on my right on channel 3b

As with TTL/BL bounce flash it doesn't matter where the subject is in the frame as long as it is under the focus point diamond .

When we introduce a white object on the right channel 3a fires normal while 3b sees the white and "underexposes" that side [You could dial in compensation , depending what you want it to do of course ]

and exactly the opposite if we move the reflector to the other side ...

When we look at an image taken with a single on-camera flash bounced off the ceiling it looks ok until we introduce the reflector .

So the pattern we see is underexposure when there is white anywhere in the frame . This is still more consistent than TTL flash which meters only off the matrix pattern . With TTL/BL also using the focus points we have a more consistent exposure as long as at least one focus point is on the white object - easily fixed with exposure compensation .
I have found that TTL/BL + 1.3 [ dialed in to the flash head ] has much more consistency than plain TTL flash . Just remember that when you use wireless flash with Nikon's CLS you are using TTL/BL metering so in the examples above , as soon as there is white in the frame you need to add around +1.3 to the exposure !
When the background is black TTL/BL meters of the subject as the brightest object in the frame .
Tonight I walked around the house with this concept in mind - I have been trying to work out the concept of TTL/BL with bounce flash indoors for a few weeks now , taking lots of pictures and trying to solve the riddle . Well I think that's basically it now : With TTL/BL and bounce flash , as with the SB400 in bounce mode - and when using wireless CLS :- "TTL/BL meters off the focus points and adjusts exposure for the brightest part of a scene under any one of the focus points ." And these were my test pictures based on that theory :
I looked at this kettle and decided " That's white enough to be a +1.3'' [ To be able to keep the camera to my eye I dialed it in with the Ev [+-] compensation button ] .

I looked at "Stinky" and decided his face was a +0.3 - and made sure a focus point wasn't on that white bit on his shirt .

I decided the phone was a little dull to be called 'white' so went for +1 only .

This bulb looked a little grey so I went for +1 , but by the look of it I could have made it a +1.3 considering all the light objects in the frame .

Regardless of the rest of the scene I knew my shiny new manual warranted a "+1.3" ...

and just about anything that has some white in the frame seems to do well with +1.3 ....

Once again , I'm not saying TTL/BL is perfect - I wouldn't need to dial in compensation if it was - but I am saying I have discovered the 'predictable' aspect of TTL/BL bounce flash - that it meters off the lightest part of the picture - as long as it is under a focus point .....

I worked hard to make sure there were no focus points on the white manual and my 'default' setting for 'average grey' scenes of +0.3 did the trick without blowing any highlights while +1.3 totally blew the highlights in this shot .

So maybe that is the problem solved for now with regard to TTL/BL and underexposure - time will tell . Just remember that when you use forward flash with the SB400 , SB800/600 or built in speedlight indoors you don't need this compensation because the flash is using the distance info from the lens .
26/10/2009 I did some more tests to see exactly how much difference there is in the amount that TTL/BL meters compared to TTL .
I borrowed a flash meter and took slow exposures and used rear curtain flash mode so I could meter the main flash without interference from the pre-flash .

The first image was in a situation where I know TTL and TTL/BL give the same results - a neutral tone centralized in the frame - they both gave the same result according to the flash meter .

Then I increased the time the shutter was open to expose the ambient correctly - TTL/BL responded by decreasing its power by 1.7 stops .

This test proves that TTL/BL does in fact adjust according to where the meter is which is affected by the shutter speed and how much of the ambient you capture . When the ambient is badly under-exposed TTL/BL takes over and provides as much lighting as it deems necessary . As you drag the shutter and let in more ambient TTL/BL responds by backing off its output all the way to -1.7 when the ambient is correctly exposed - which is a commonly accepted setting for for fill-flash in TTL mode . Of course since TTL and TTL/BL meter differently the results will not be exactly the same in varying situations .

In my recent blog on tests with the diffuser dome a comment was added by Russ McDonald who helped design the original system in the 80's which I find very interesting .

" In TTL-BL mode, When the preflash return is strong much more emphasis is placed on the preflash and much less is placed on the distance.

In TTL-BL mode, when the preflash return is weak, much more emphasis is placed on the distance.

This may be part of the differences you are seeing between using the diffuser and not using the diffuser. The diffuser can cause a big difference in the preflash return energy. "

A while ago he mentioned how the original program was designed to use distance info in case the pre-flash reading was messed up by the bright background for which TTL/BL was originally designed [ before they changed it ] .
So it appears that in an obscure way the diffuser dome gives greater accuracy because the weaker pre-flash reading encourages the program to use the distance info more in its calculations taking advantage of the direct light coming from the dome .
original blog

Flash : Direct flash , TTL-BL vs TTL

2010-07-04T01:13:00.000-07:00

Direct flash :TTL/BL vs TTL

Recently I was involved in a discussion regarding the advantage of distance info when using TTL/BL and direct flash .
Anyway I decided to try to explain this in an uninterrupted logical manner for those who are interested in the subject .
Ideally we avoid direct flash but there are times when we have no choice . Outdoors in daylight is a good example with nothing to bounce off and when we only want subtle fill-flash as well .
First we need to understand how they meter :
TTL doesn't care how well you have the ambient exposed , it simply tries to get an average grey in the centre of the frame ......

TTL/BL on the other hand is more complicated , when the flash head is pointing forward it meters quite heavily toward the distance info from the lens as well as using a different pattern to meter from , it uses the " focus point diamond '' and can select a smaller area from anywhere inside that pattern ......

With direct flash though it only uses a small portion of the pre-flash reading from this pattern .
On to the tests . First we have TTL/BL , I've underexposed the background in these pictures so we only have the flash lighting the scene .

With the advantage of distance info TTL/BL does a pretty good job of maintaining a consistent exposure for the subject regardless of its size in the frame - now TTL flash .

As you can see TTL doesn't know the distance , all it knows is that it wants an average grey in the centre of the frame and to illustrate this I took both of these images and applied an 'average blur' in photoshop in the centre of the frame .....

When the subject is central and fills a decent percentage of the centre of the frame it's not bad ....

But when the subject is smaller and far from the background TTL has to make that small subject really bright to get and average grey in the centre of the frame , TTL/BL does not suffer from this weakness since it knows how far away the subject is [ with direct flash only ! ]

Now we take a darker subject with a lighter background , some may say TTL flash looks better here ....

In reality TTL has fired stronger because the subject does not fill the frame and is black so it's trying to make it an average grey . The result may be more pleasing to the eyes for some but essentially the problem is not with TTL/BL flash in this case . When you are using direct flash and want to light the subject correctly you can't expect the flash to light the background correctly as well as the subject and be accurate in both cases ,though , with TTL flash , there will be the odd occasion where the results will look good with the right combination of subject colour , size , and distance from the background which is pure luck .

So the problem is not the 'car' but the 'nut that holds the steering wheel ' .
If you are using direct flash you have to make sure you expose the ambient correctly - so that is what I have done , I adjusted the shutter speed to expose the background the way I wanted it and let the flash handle the subject - in this case TTL/BL senses that the ambient is having a greater effect on the subject and backs off accordingly .

TTL on the other hand still thinks it is the only light source and fires too strong causing more blown highlights .

The conclusion of the matter ? If you are using direct flash with TTL/BL you are concentrating on the subject at a set distance and have to expose for the background with your normal camera settings , with direct flash and TTL on the other hand it all depends on how big your subject is in the centre of the frame , the subject colour , the background colour behind the subject in the centre of the frame that it meters from , the distance form the background that is having an effect on the metering .......
I choose TTL/BL and the advantage of the distance info from the lens with direct flash .Choose whichever you want - just understand how it works . [ and shoot manual flash when possible :smile: ] .

On page 1.) we established that TTL/BL uses the distance info from the lens "when the flash is facing forward" . Of course in most situations we want to avoid direct flash but outdoors where there is nothing to bounce off , and in bright sunlight where the flash isn't the main light source , we still use it sometimes .

Just a quick review of TTL/BL and the distance factor - first a properly focused picture ....

Then we manually go to close focus and the flash dims down automatically

and as we change the focus distance to 20 metres it brightens up ....

proving that the focus distance directly affects the flash .
Now for the proof in real life . I set up my model ''Stinky'' indoors to only show the flash with little ambient to detract from the results . I left a reflector in the same position and then moved the subject under the focus point further away . This is what TTL did with the scene - it was totally fooled by that white reflector and exposed for it the whole time .

Now on to TTL/BL . Even though the reflector was in the same position reflecting back a lot of light TTL/BL continued to meter for the active focus point on the subject and was not fooled by the white object in the frame .

This proves that TTL/BL is superior with direct flash photography - it's a pity it doesn't have that reliability with bounce flash and wireless CLS .
Of course it isn't a simple program and there may still be some surprises when we use it but I am slowly coming to grips with its 'logic' .
Using direct flash outdoors is not the problem , predicting results indoors where the flash is the main source of light is more of a challenge because there is little ambient light to hide our mistakes as with pictures in bright sunlight .

Understanding Nikon flash

Flash : auto-fp or high-fp mode

2010-07-04T00:49:00.000-07:00

The apertures shown here are not important , they are just the settings I used to do my tests and maintain a constant ambient exposure to compare the difference in working distance at different shutter speeds .
The shutter speeds shown should show the same pattern though .

Nikon's manuals don't explain auto 'high'- fp very well - or the limitations involved .
Most cameras have a focal plane shutter , except the D1 , D40 , D50 and D70[S] , they have electronically switched sensor/shutters and can do what I call 'realsynch flash' and effectively have 6X as much power with flash at maximum speed , compared to a pro body in high-fp mode } , but other cameras need high-fp mode .

At your camera's maximum synch speed [ 1/200th sec for the D90 ] the shutter opens , the flash fires , and the shutter closes , which means that the entire sensor gets the full flash .
Here's an older camera with a 1/90th sec synch speed ...

As the shutter speed increases the " first curtain " of the shutter opens and the " second curtain " starts chasing it across the screen right after it starts moving which means that a slit slides across the screen . If the flash were to fire at a higher shutter speed than the maximum synch speed you will get a partially-lit photo .....

As you can see in the above image the flash fired , it lasted about 1/10 000th sec and turned off - the slit was still in the beginning stages of its travels though and so only a slit has been lit , as the slit continues its journey with no light source the top of the image will be black .
The solution is for the flash to act as a ' continuous ' light , it fires rapidly in succession and may fire tens of thousands of times per second , and so is effectively a 'continuous ' light and behaves the same as the ambient with regard to the fact that shutter speed now controls the flash output as well as the ambient .
It would look something like this in slow motion - as the slit slides across the frame the flash keeps firing .... bzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

This is an old Canon camera so it is not exactly what the Nikon shutter would look like but it conveys the general idea . The main trade-off being that a lot of light is being wasted on the back of the partially open shutter .
To do the maths you simply need to put your SB800 on the camera and assume 'sunny 16' rule - for the brightest clearest day you could have - at iso 200 and 1/200th you would be at F16 - set it to that , it's a " worst case scenario ' for outdoor flash .

Now have a look at the working distance shown on the back of the flash with the flash head facing forward , we have :
1.) 18mm 8.8 feet .
2.) 35mm 11 feet .
3.) 105mm 17 feet .
Now when we keep the ambient exposure where it is we can assume that changing to F8 will let in 4 X as much light so we would have to go to 1/800th sec shutter speed which is high-fp mode .
This gives us :
1.) 18mm 4.6 feet
2.) 35mm 5.8 feet
3.) 105mm 8.8 feet .
The calculations :
1.) 4.6/8.8 = 0.522 X the distance .
2.) 5.8/11 = 0.527 X the distance .
3.) 8.8/17 = 0.517 X the distance .
The D90 has a synch speed of 1/200th and @ 105mm zoom ....
I kept adjusting my settings for an equally exposed ambient and got these results :
F20 iso 200 1/125th = 4.0, working distance
F18 iso 200 1/160th = 4.5m
F16 iso 200 1/200th = 5.0m
F14 iso 200 1/250th = 2.7m
F13 iso 200 1/320th = 2.7m
F11 iso 200 1/400th = 2.7m
F10 iso 200 1/500th = 2.7m
We see the pattern change with auto-fp where the flash starts to behave like a continuous light source and the working distance stays the same .
I just recorded the assumed working distance that the SB800 reported without actually doing any tests to see how much power it had but the distance of 2.7m as opposed to 5.0m suggested slightly more than 1/4 power available then normal flash mode .
It seems though that many are reporting less than that so I wonder where the error lies ?So that means that we have just over half the working distance in each situation when we keep the ambient exposure where it is . To confirm this we can go to F4 , let in 4 X as much light , and to keep the ambient where it is we will have to go to 1/3200th sec effectively cutting that 4 X as much light in 1/4 again and negating the " advantage ' of opening the aperture .
So now the flash is behaving the same as continuous light and whatever we do , keeping the ambient correctly exposed , we will have that same working distance .
Because of the 'inverse square law' [ 2 X the distance needs 4 X the power , while 1/2 the distance only needs 1/4 the power ] .

When the subject is twice as far the lengths of the sides doubles , 2 X 2 = 4 X the area .
And of course halving the distance means you will only need 1/4 the power .

Once again it's not all that simple . The distances shown are with regard to the flash having to light the entire scene , something we don't need when we have the ambient correctly exposed .
A common setting for those who use 'fill-flash' outdoors is TTL-1.7 compensation , just to add some light to the subject without overpowering it with flash .
TTL flash doesn't know how well you have the ambient exposed and negative compensation will need to be dialed in . TTL/BL on the other hand takes the ambient exposure into account and if it detects correct exposure it will automatically dial itself back to the equivalent of TTL-1.7 in situations where they meter equally .
Many people will dial in even more negative compensation so if you had to assume an 'average' of -2 EV for the flash compensation that is two stops , or 1/4 the power that you are 'demanding' of the flash anyway so it will be able to do that at the first distance suggested by the flash head before you changed to high-fp mode .
If you were in TTL mode and went to high-fp , at105mm , and shot a subject 17 feet away [ when the flash head tells you that your limit is 8.8 feet ] the flash head will probably register -2 after firing telling you it never had enough power .
But if you have dialed in '-2' on the flash head it will be happy to light a subject 17 feet away because it can do that at '-2' :) .

This afternoon I did some tests to compare the power of auto-fp to normal flash . I used a solid white wall and kept the flash set at 1/1 full power and also made sure I kept the ambient level [which was very under-exposed ] the same , to simulate a situation where we would keep our ambient settings in the same place while reverting to auto-fp mode .
I aimed to get the same histogram in each shot and it was interesting how much difference a few cm made when I made adjustments .

This is what I aimed for :

He then did a test with ambient only and compared the results to make sure it wasn't the shutter that was causing the variation .

My conclusion is that due to the way auto-fp works even though the flash head suggests the same working distance at any of these settings when in auto-fp mode it appears that the combination at 1/2000th sec yields the greatest output , after which the curve drops off again .
Since auto-fp flash behaves as a continuous light the slower the speed the more energy it requires ! So faster shutter speeds mean that light is 'switched on' for shorter times , not counting the short period before the shutter opens and after it closes that it will need to be on . This will result in faster charge times .

In other words , when you revert to auto-fp mode stay away from the slower speeds and aim for 1/2000th sec and the aperture that gets you the results you want to get the most flash power possible in this mode .

I got this free graph program here
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Flash : Sound activated flash trigger

2010-07-04T00:38:00.000-07:00

I have been asked to share my technique with regard to triggering a flash for 'special' pictures .
Here's the youtube video

the basics :

To trigger a flash you simply need to join the centre pin to the side 'earth' contact which is basically what the 'test' button does on a flash . The 'pc' plug on the side of the flash has these two contacts . if your flash doesn't have a 'pc' plug you can always use a cheap hotshoe adapter to make the contact for you

plug a 'pc' cord into it and take the two wires to the relay on the switching kit , connect them to pin 'com' and 'no' contacts of the relay [ 'common' and 'normally open' ] .

The picture is taken in a very dark room or at night outside , especially if you are shooting water balloons with an air rifle ! Set up the camera in manual mode, lowest iso , around F9 and two seconds exposure which gives a pitch black image if there is no additional light .
Take a few test images and adjust the distance of the flash to get correct exposure before you start destroying anything .

Then you need to trigger the flash , there are various ways to do this but in this case I bought a voice activated switch kit and modified it .

I also added a two metre length of wire to the mic so I could move it around .
It would have still worked with the original relay but there would have been a slight delay when it pulls in - I added a solid state relay for instant switching and the first images were of a balloon with a hole in it that hadn't had time to split yet !

What you need to do in a case like this is keep moving the mic further away so the sound has to travel further , until you catch the explosion at the right moment in time .

I set the camera up on a tripod [ D90 , 70-200VR lens , but any camera would do the job if it has a manual mode - even a compact ! ] , fill the balloon and place it on the table , trigger the camera with the remote and you have two seconds to fire !
The sound of the air rifle triggers the 'voice activated switch ' and the relay joins the two 'pc' wires together which fires the flash . the lowest power on an SB24 is 1/16th which fires at 1/11000th sec and for some shots I used the Sb800 at 1/128th power which gave me 1/41600th sec .
That's the pellet behind the balloon , at 1/11000th sec .

Someone sugested I try safety goggles so I said "ok"

You could add food colouring

And of course not every country allows the use of air rifles and you don't all live on a farm like I do so you could just put the mic on a table and drop a glass of water or something to trigger the flash ...

These are just a few of the things I tried , you can photograph anything that makes a sound that will trigger the flash - how about setting your SB800 to 100hz repeating flash and dropping a golf ball .... it needs some work still but shows one of the many other possibilites for sound activated flash pictures !

Friday 2 /10/2009 update .....................

Also see "Stop motion photography"

Flash : Going manual .

2010-07-03T22:42:00.000-07:00

The first time I thought about going manual I had my camera in auto mode - I looked in the viewfinder and did a 360 degree turn and watched the meter changing rapidly as the scene changed ... I wondered how anyone could ever reach the stage where they could change the settings that quickly .
I eventually realized that nobody needs to change settings that fast , the meter is getting confused by small changes in a scene that has the same lighting in it and essentially could be photographed at the same settings .
With flash , things get a little more complicated because you are working with two exposures , one for the ambient in the background [ where flash is having no effect ] and one for the flash on the subject - along with the fact that the subject will contain a measure of the ambient as well as the light from the flash .
Add to this the fact that flash is greatly affected by distance from the subject and the inverse square law .
This is why people who shoot manual with the camera often still use automatic flash .

But it is still worth doing some tests with manual mode and manual flash to gain a greater understanding of the principles involved . With the following images the flash was in manual mode at 1/16th power the whole time .

To learn about shooting in manual it still helps to see what settings the camera would choose - turn off auto-iso , put the camera in manual and adjust the settings until the meter is zeroed .

Take a picture at those settings ....

There's not much detail in the clouds at those settings - you don't have to obey the meter , different metering modes would choose different settings and in this case matrix metering chose settings that over-exposed the background . It got us close enough to decide what we want to do , to get more detail in the clouds in the background I dialed in 1/200th which effectively let in half as much light as 1/100th thereby darkening the background .

Now the ambient light is where we want it we turn on the flash which was kept at 1/16th power the whole time to simplify matters .

The subject looks a little too bright now . There are two things that affect flash , Aperture and iso .
Changing aperture determines how much light is let in through the lens - this affects ambient light and flash ...

So if we change from F6.3 to F9 we darken the ambient [background lighting] and the affect of the flash in the image .

Now the subject isn't so blown out but the background has also gotten a little dark

If we want the background to get brighter , without blowing out the subject we can slow down the shutter speed again - we can go back to 1/100th sec and effectively make the ambient twice as bright again .

And there we have a brighter background

The background would look exactly the same if I had simply changed the iso to 400 instead of slowing down the shutter speed - but increasing the iso also affects the flash and we would still have a blown out subject that way ....

Also keep in mind that there is some ambient on the subject as well . As we slow down the shutter speed the flash is not affected but we can see the ambient on the subject having a greater effect as the light wrapping around it shows to a greater degree ...... 1/50th lets in twice as much of the ambient light again without affecting the flash which has happened in 1/5000th sec already ....

1/25th let's in twice as much ambient as 1/50th again - without affecting the flash on the subject .

And 1/13th doubles that again - we see more of the ambient wrapping around the subject but the part that is lit mainly by the flash hasn't changed .

If you are using an older flash that doesn't speak the same language as the newer cameras just keep in mind the fact that the camera may not know there is a flash attached and will not limit your shutter speed to the maximum synch speed .
So what will happen if you exceed the maximum synch speed ? [ See auto-fp flash ] .
Try taking a picture at something like 1/400th sec ....

Since it is a focal plane shutter the movement of the shutter starts to get in the way of the flash at higher speeds - the flash still fires at about 1/5000th sec but the shutter is moving across the frame as a large slit at this speed and is never open across the whole frame at once regardless of how fast the flash fires .....

Increase the speed even more ....

And at 1/800th the slit that slides across the frame is getting smaller creating a larger shadow area where the flash is having no effect ... where there is flash though it is as bright as normal at those settings . At these speeds the flash itself is not affected by the shutter speed - it is now a mechanical problem where the shutter movement is conflicting with the flash . The D90 synch speed is limited to 1/200th sec .

When you are using bounce flash with a ceiling at a constant height manual mode is reasonably reliable because the distance the light travels is relatively consistent but when using direct flash outdoors where there is nothing to bounce off it gets a little complicated .
If you double your distance from the subject the flash on the subject drops to 1/4 of what it was because it is spreading over 4 times the area ..... if the subject is 1.4142 X the distance then you will need twice the flash power .... if you are happy with doing those calculations then use manual flash outdoors but quite honestly I'll stick with auto flash when conditions are changing rapidly .

RTC - syndrome : "Resistance To Change"

2010-07-02T02:21:00.000-07:00

"RTC- syndrome = Resistance To Change .... "Artsy syndrome" for short "
People are by nature resistant to change . If you suggest something new people will be busy thinking of how they can contradict your statement before you finish speaking " It'll never work ...." . That's what happened when I told my workmates that I was going to invent a ''bilge pump powered longline fishing kontiki " ..... it's human nature and it happens whenever something new is introduced in photography as well .
When the Nikon D90 was first released people were saying "We don't need video in a DSLR" , today people are saying " Is the video quality in this camera as good as in the other model ? " - not necessarily the same people but I'll bet a reasonable percentage of the 'nay-sayers' have accepted it now .

That's a pattern that has probably repeated itself with every new introduction in photography .
Possibly from the time they introduced mechanical control of shutter speed as opposed to people opening and closing the lens cap manually . Some even opposed auto-focus .... " It's not natural , all this new technology doing what we should be doing manually !" .... now people judge a camera by the speed of its auto-focus . Auto modes , pattern metering , program mode ...... then digital came out - how many people "swore blind they'd never go digital " because all they were ever used to was film !
People initially oppose change and then once it is 'no longer change ' but 'normal' they embrace it and set their standards by it .
Being resistant to change is another way of being 'narrow minded' - speaking against something without even thinking properly about it .

Unfortunately it gets worse with time .
"They don't play music any more like they did in my day " ...... sound familiar ? How is it that people's tastes change so much over time ? They don't ! Memory is affected by "adrenalin" and "emotion" and when the human body is undergoing the changes of ''their generation " they are more affected by adrenalin and emotion than in later years so anything from ''their time'' [ music , inventions etc. ] is the best ! Anything after that is '' a little over the top for my taste '' because they have ''mellowed out'' and are less affected by adrenalin and emotion .... then their children go through the stage where ''their time'' is the best ever with the best music .... and the pattern repeats itself .

It's a bit like the theory of relativity ..... everything is relative to the observer - someone is walking at 5 km/hr - but they're on a train traveling at 100km/hr . To them personally they are moving at 5 km/hr but to an outside observer , if they are walking to the front of the train they are moving at 105 km/hr .
When I first got my drivers license and got my first car there were a lot of old 'fuddy duddies' on the road - those old fossils who couldn't seem to find the accelerator pedal and shouldn't even be allowed on the road !
There were only a few 'hooligans' who drove faster than I thought was 'reasonable' and also shouldn't be allowed on the road .
In the last 25 years things seem to have evened out a bit - there are slightly more hooligans and surprisingly less 'old fuddy duddies' than before - maybe people have learned a bit more common sense in this time ?
But I imagine that in another 25 years there will be tons of hooligans on the road ...! to me that is :(
As emotion and adrenalin subsides RTC - syndrome becomes more prevalent . new inventions start to become 'over the top' and totally unnecessary . If you grew up with manual flash , you eventually accepted "A" mode thyristor controlled flash , you eventually understood and accepted " TTL flash " but now TTL-BL or E-TTLII flash is a getting a bit 'out of hand' and ' unnecessary ' , it's a little 'over the top ' having a flash system that also calculates the distance of the subject and what you have done with the ambient exposure in its output - we've been used to doing that for years and this is taking things a little too far now .... should you still be driving a car ???

Whether you're at the stage where there are only one or two hooligans on the road [normal RTC- syndrome] or are at the stage where everyone on the road is a hooligan [advanced RTC- syndrome] give a thought to your reaction the next time something new is introduced and ask yourself whether you have thought out your objections or are letting human nature get in the way of reasonableness .
Technology is moving faster than ever so RTC-syndrome is affecting shorter 'generations' of people ..... try to keep up :) .

.

Using an older flash

2010-07-01T02:15:00.000-07:00

With today's electronic cameras we have to be careful about fitting older flashes to a camera .
The most important thing to check with an older flash that you intend using is the " trigger voltage" . There is a list of trigger voltages on this site as a general guide but always check for yourself .
Many of today's compact cameras can't handle more than around 6 volts - check what the manual says !
Then check the trigger voltage of the flash you want to use and decide for yourself .
The better DSLR's can handle up to 250 volts but you decide for yourself if you are prepared to take the risk of putting an old piece of 'electronics' on your expensive camera .

So you've checked the manual to see what your camera can handle , now look up the trigger voltage of the old flash on the site I mentioned at the beginning and then measure it yourself to be sure .
Have a look at this old flash I received today - I thought I may as well get some pictures before I dissect it .

There's a reason why the 'test' button is right at the base of the flash - it's easier to fit there because the wires it joins together go right to the base of the flash as well . This is a wiring 'schematic' showing what the wires inside look like , they go to that button which is a switch that joins that pin in the centre to a not too easily seen earth contact on the side .
These are the contacts you need to join manually for stop motion photography .

These are the two important contacts , you are probably better off covering the other contacts with a piece of tape or something because the camera may not like the flash talking a strange language to it and may refuse to fire if those pins confuse it with their "ancient dialect " . You can also buy a 'safe synch' adapter if you don't want to bother with checking voltages - they supposedly protect your camera from any voltage an old flash can put out .

So put your multi-meter on the 200-500 volts scale just in case [ I've measured these voltages at up to 220 volts previously , try putting a 12 volt light bulb in a 240 volt socket to see what could happen if you put the wrong flash on a compact that is made to handle 6 volts ! ] - put the leads on the centre pin of the hotshoe and the hard to reach contact on the side of the hotshoe and see how many volts it registers [with batteries in the flash , and the flash turned on , and the 'ready light' lit of course] .

In this particular case the meter showed a negative reading of "-8" volts . The earth pin is in the centre of this flash and the positive contact on the side - curious .

So 8 volts is pretty safe in my books - but the negative voltage ? For that reason I would test it on my old D50 before trying it on the D90 .

Now we look at the controls ...... It looks like this flash has many inputs but we eventually find out that if it isn't going to work in auto mode via the other communication pins at the base of the flash ... there is only in fact one 'electronic' control - the on-off button !
Looking at the bottom "W NST" simply refers to whether you have the flash head zoomed to any of those positions , moving it to one of them will simply slide a distance scale to tell you what working distance you have - minimum and maximum . The minimum distance refers to the closest you can get without over-exposing since there is also a limit to how weak a flash can fire ! The red and blue stripes would probably be your reference , depending what mode you have chosen .

And on the front you can choose between "M" for manual and "blue" mode , or "red" mode - two supposedly semi auto modes .

The crazy thing is that the switch on the front is ''mechanical" in it's operation - there is nothing electronic about it . In the hole is a thyristor control that measures the light reflecting back from the subject when the flash fires and stops the flash when it measures a certain amount of light . The three settings are simply different ''filters'' that move in front of this window .
In the 'blue mode' there is a hazy piece of plastic that moves in front of the sensor and simply makes it harder for the thyristor to 'see' the light coming back ... twice as hard actually as we will see from the settings .
So because only half the light reaches the sensor in this mode the flash fires twice as powerful as 'red mode' meaning you can use a smaller aperture . if you look at the two arrows on the selection scale they are one stop apart = F1.4 in red mode or F2 in blue mode .

Here's 'red mode ' , basically a clear window that allows the sensor to 'see' the light better and switch off sooner ..... talk about amazing technology !

What of manual mode ? ...... that's like putting a lens cap on , moving the slider to "M" simply slides a piece of black plastic across the 'eye' ..... the sensor doesn't 'see' any light from the flash and so fires at full power each time - it is still actually in auto mode but since it can't get a reading it will naturally fire at full power .

Now the other slider on the back of the flash - this also shows that the flash is actually set for one particular output based on the thyristor reading - the "hazy filter" in the red and blue modes simply affects the sensor reading to give the appearance of two power levels . The settings on the back are simply different combination's of each mode for exactly the same output .

Let's start with iso 100 , red mode gives us F2.8 and blue mode gives us F4 .

Look at the setting for iso 400 : Red mode F5.6 , blue mode F8

If we were at iso 100 in red mode for example we would have to shoot at f2.8 to get enough light from the flash at the basic output it is set to , to achieve a correct exposure .
By moving to iso 400 and effectively amplifying all light entering the lens 4X we can go to a smaller aperture - two stops lower , to f5.6 . Due to the inverse square law and the fact that aperture is a ratio of diameter F5.6 lets in 1/4 of the light as f2.8 ....... a factor of 4 as with the change from iso 100-400 . They cancel each other out - multiply the light by 4 with iso and divide it by 4 with aperture .

So none of those sliders change anything in the flash - they just tell us what settings to use to get the right exposure for what the flash is designed to put out . Of course we don't have to obey the flash settings - if the results are consistently wrong , too bright for example , we could use a lower iso or smaller aperture than suggested to achieve the results we prefer .

On another note something else to check with an older flash is the battery compartment - open the battery compartment and check that there is no corrosion from batteries that may have been leaking in the past .
If there is any corrosion a flat bladed screwdriver can be used to clean it off .

This flash was good inside considering its age . I won't be using it on my camera , I have some 'experiments' to perform on it and just thought I'd share what I know with those who intend using an older flash on their camera .... good luck !

The luge battle

2010-06-29T23:30:00.001-07:00

Last week coming through Rotorua I visited a friend and used my Goprp helemt cam to get a video of us battling against each other on the "luge"

Photography tips

2010-06-25T02:49:00.000-07:00

I'm going to start this off with what I can remember so far - which isn't much at the moment but I'll update it as time progresses .Please feel free to add to this list of tips regarding photography - most of which I have heard on the forums . Either contact me or post it in the comments section below .

1.) "Just because you have the tools doesn't mean you have to use them "
Someone told me this after I bought a new flash and started trying to use it on every occasion to 'enhance' images . I had used it with someone standing next to a large window with really good natural light coming from the side..... and totally destroyed the natural atmosphere of the image .
If you have some gear that you enjoy using , or are trying to learn to use don't lose sight of the fact that an image may actually look better without it .

2.) "First find the light , then find the background "
Don't go looking for a nice background then try to get the light right - first find decent lighting , then find the best background for it .

3.) "Fill the frame "
know what to include in the image and what to exclude - simplify the image . Also keep in mind though , that depending on how you will print the image it is good to have some extra space around your 'frame' to allow for cropping or the possibility of the sides of the image being cut off at different printing ratios .
This is particularly important with group shots of people , if they are touching the sides of the frame they may all fit in if the picture is the same aspect ratio of your camera but doing a "8X10" of the image might chop of a person on either side while an "8X12" would get them all in [ with a 3:2 aspect ratio ] " Always scan the edges of the frame before taking the picture " [ if time allows of course :) ]
Get as close to your subject as possible (of course, within reason). I shoot a lot of sportscars (and other stuff) and I always notice photographers shooting from halfway up the seating area. Maybe they are using a zoom lens with 200 mm or 300 mm at the long end but why not move down the hill and get right up against the fence*, then frame and shoot.

I feel the less distance between the shooter and the subject the more clarity in the image. And using a slight shorter focal length may increase your maximum aperture, which could be a good thing. [ "Peter" planetnikon.com ]

4.) " The camera doesn't 'see' the same way your brain does " .
Learn to look at things the way your camera does .
Have a look at "how the brain sees" .

5.) "If you see something you think is interesting or like - take a picture of it. If you walk away and decide to come back, it may not be there."
Example: I drove by a beautiful huge sycamore tree for years. It must have been over 100 years old. Perfectly formed and stood by itself. I saw it in every season, in every light and always though what a beautiful seasonal picture series it would make. They cut it down. No images, except those in my mind. ["midocr" - nikoncafe ]

6.) "Don't be satisfied with your first shot."
Take pictures of the same scene/object/person/etc. in landscape and portrait modes, and from different angles, locations heights etc.
Bracket exposures, focus, dof, and try different lenses.
["Palouse" Nikoncafe ]

7.) "F8 and be there ! "
I think this is old saying comes from newspaper reporters . Essentially it is about the idea of choosing settings that will get all the detail you need and actually being there to capture it as opposed to stressing about ideal settings for a situation with the chance of missing the action .
If you have time then by all means choose the ideal settings but if something important is happening [ eg: at a wedding ] then the most important task at hand is to capture the moment which won't happen again ..... you could be fiddling with settings and stressing about image quality and miss the shot because time did not allow for it .
.

8.) "Check your settings when you pull the camera out of the bag. Or always reset your settings to some base level after you're done."
If I had a dime for every time I pulled my camera out of the bag and shot 30 photos at ISO 800 because that's what it was last night, I'd be shooting with a D3x by now.[ "free range otter" nikoncafe ]
Before shooting, always remember to check for "W.I.M.P." It stands for "White Balance, ISO, Metering, Priority." This is your pre-shoot checklist [ JGI nikoncafe ].

9.) "Don't let the gear get in the way of taking good photos " ["twistedlogic" Nikoncafe]
Otherwise know as " A bad workman blames his tools " . Since today's entry level cameras are better than the first professional digital cameras in regard to image quality it is hard to see how people can still think that really good images are due to the camera gear being used . Although there are some images that require expensive lenses there are still many good images that can be achieved with the right knowledge , and just about any camera .

10. ) " Get it right in-camera "
Never say "oh I'll just fix it in Photoshop" - compose the shot the way it looks in your minds eye and then expose it

11.) "Never try anything new at an important shoot "
Photography is like hiking in the mountains - you make sure that your equipment works before you attempt a hike . Wearing new boots on a long hike can only guarantee blisters . A new flash or lens could still be faulty right from the factory .
You could slip in that brand new memory card only to find it is not compatible with your camera - or your Nikon D1 doesn't recognize 32 Gig cards .

12 .) "Beware of 'bulls-eye shooting' "
It is a common and easy mistake to make - lining the subject up in the centre focus point and firing away , this often leads to pictures with a large gap above the person's head , or 'uncomfortable space' around the object you may be photographing . Keep the 'rule of thirds' in mind , perhaps placing your subject to the side of the frame rather . With full-body shots of people though it is often better to have twice as much space above their heads as below their feet - but you still don't centralize their head in the middle of the picture that way .
These are just guidelines as opposed to 'laws' but usually work better than the subject right in the centre of the frame all the time . Sometimes central composition will work better - for example maybe you are taking a picture of a 'bulls-eye' :) and that is the effect you want to show .

13.) " People 'read' photographs " .
This is a strange one . If people read from left to right that's the way the look at a photograph . often a picture will look more 'normal' if it is framed on the right . For example " A bride walking up to the groom leaning up against a tree " - if the tree is on the right then the picture seems to make more sense but if it is on the left it is " A tree , with the groom leaning up against it and the bride walking towards him " ..... which doesn't quite sound normal .
If you were to show people the same image flipped over and ask which one they think has been flipped most of them will pick the one that is framed on the left because to them that one will not feel 'normal' - depending on whether you read from left to right or from right to left .
Depending on what country you are in when you enter a photography competition it would pay to know which way the judges read before deciding on what composition to use because what looks normal to you may look backwards to them .

14.) "Fishing lures are designed to catch fishermen "
Ok , I made that one up but essentially what I am trying to say is that all those fancy attachments for your flash that keep being invented are primarily designed to make money for the person selling them rather than improve your photography . You can do a lot with one flash either off camera or used on-camera as bounce flash .
Many of those accessories will end up collecting dust once you realize how useless they actually are or how insignificant the difference in the results is .

15.) " Digital costs nothing extra to take more photos "
We have two lines of thought on this one .....
a.) Don't be shy to experiment , go out and take pictures , try different settings - it's no costing you any more to take twice as many pictures ..... BUT
b.) When it matters , shoot as if you are using expensive film - that way you will think harder about each shot rather than resorting to "Spray and pray" - taking hundreds of pictures in the hopes that a few will accidentally be good .

16.) " Don't just 'take' good photos , 'make' good photos " .
The light won't always be good but you may still need to take a photo . Bring out the flash , the reflector/s ... whatever you can use to actually make it better . You can't always expect things to work out just right - sometimes you have to do more work for decent images .

The " amateur wine connoisseurs " and photography .

2010-06-24T01:29:00.000-07:00

There are many of them out there , they are the people that give a picture first place in a competition and nobody knows why . Everyone who looks at the picture thinks " I would have deleted that picture if I had taken it !?" . Meanwhile the person judging those pictures is usually trying to show that they understand the ''deeper meaning'' of the image regardless of whether it is actually appealing or not .

Why "Amateur wine connoisseurs " ?
Because it reminds me of a story about this guy who always used to annoy everyone with his "knowledge" of decent wines . One day we swapped the contents of two bottles , we put cheap wine in a bottle with a fancy , 'expensive' label . We presented him with the bottle and after reading the label he held it up to the light and pointed out how he could now recognize the excellent colour of an expensive wine ..... we looked at each other sideways . Then he proceeded to pour a little into a glass and swirl it around before sniffing it and telling us how much better the aroma of a good quality wine is before sipping it and saying " You don't get taste like this from a cheap wine !" ..... we never had it in us to tell him what we had done though - you kind of feel sorry for people like that :( .

Now in the world of photography [ basically in any occupation ] you get "Amateur wine connoisseurs" .
People who have learned something that they feel is a little more than what the 'average' person knows and they are quite proud of themselves for understanding it to the point where they feel slightly superior to those who don't have this knowledge .

The "Amateur wine connoisseurs "[ " AWC's "] have often studied many famous photographers to learn how to get "unique" images , rather ironically. Often the "AWC" who worships his hero photographers will go out of his way to justify anything that doesn't look right to the average person in one of their images while trying to show their superiority in understanding this 'hidden meaning' by explaining exactly why the image is good and why the artist 'broke the rules' and how they personally understand that 'deeper meaning' that couldn't possibly be wrong ..... because of the "label on the bottle" [ the artists name ] .

Those same people would probably give a beginner photographer who produced the same image a list of reasons why the same image is wrong but because they find out that an image was taken by one of their hero's they will fiercely defend it from any criticism and ridicule anyone who doesn't like the image .

Seriously , a picture is supposed to say a thousand words so if someone has to actually explain each aspect of a picture then that picture has failed in what it was supposed to convey .....
Get real , think for yourselves , those hero's you worship may be talented people who have made a name for themselves but they are still only human - they make mistakes as well and perhaps as they progress they may look back at some of their images from the 'early days' and wish they had done them differently ..... while the AWC will continue to believe for all eternity that that is how a 'unique' image should look ... because of the 'fancy label on the bottle '.

In summary I'll mention that there are artists I admire for their work, many of them produce good work consistently , but I never judge an image by the name of the artist , I don't have any "hero's" , I only see them as 'stepping stones' to glean what you can from them before moving on - how do you make progress if you are limited to judgments made by other imperfect people ? You would only be limiting your potential to the percentage of what you can remember about others .
So learn to think for yourself , have an open mind , and beware of falling into the trap of becoming an "AWC" who judges by the label on the bottle rather than by what " looks , smells and tastes right " !

25 / 06 / 2010 - this was contributed by "JGI" of nikoncafe :
In another forum I used to frequent, there's this know-it-all guy who swears up and down that he can hear the "audio signature" of a McIntosh tube amplifier. So they arranged a meet for him to "judge" another member's McIntosh setup. When they played some scores with high dynamic ranges, he praised the "warm fuzzy sound" that's emanating from the exotic components, and how the highs were so defined that he thought there were actual cymbals in the room. When the audition was over, they showed him what amp was actually being used... a cheap Aiwa receiver bought from Wal-Mart! The poor guy never posted again in that forum.

While discussing this article on the forums I also thought about the possibility that we could go totally in the opposite direction to great benefit . If we can make sure we don't become an "AWC" who pretends they recognize a "good" wine due to the label on the bottle perhaps we could become skillful enough to recognize a potentially good wine in a bottle with a cheap label ?

We may be quick to point out the mistakes in a beginners photo but do we ever recognize the potential in the image that exists if their mistakes could be corrected as they learn more ?
I suppose we could compare this to being able to recognize a wine that will be good once it 'matures' .

Quoted from Ed Sharpio of photocamel

"What is worse than a simple AWC is a IHW (Intransigent Hero Worshiper). This is a photographer who latches on to a a popular photographer/teacher and becomes not only a student but a disciple. This teacher becomes a god and anything that is done that contradicts or innocently strays from the ways of his or her Deity is bad, evil, sacrilege and unadulterated crap! Every judgment or critique that comes out of this person's head is based on his cultism or tribalism. These folks want to be clones of their teacher, however, they will never rise to the level of their teacher because they tend to follow him or her mechanically and don't realize the nuances where the real genius lies."

Tokina 11-16mm F2.8

2010-06-11T02:07:00.000-07:00

I've had this lens for a week and after the first day it was already my favourite lens .
The fact that it is a constant F2.8 lens really adds to its 'likability' . The build quality is good and it feels well made - but time will tell , though Tokina does have a good reputation .I've owned the Sigma 10-20 mm lens and though I enjoyed using it I didn't like the softness and the strange distortion near the edges - straight lines don't have that normal constant curvature on them , they suddenly drop off near the ends .
Not so with the Tokina - for those of you who really worry about distortion I took two images of a wall at 11mm and 16mm .
The distortion is much more natural than with the Sigma 10-20mm .

There isn't much distortion at 16mm though with a lens like this most of the time you are at 11mm , and shooting things like landscapes where the distortion on the edges isn't such an issue anyway .

Here are a few images I've shot with this lens in the last week :
A shop in Raglan , New Zealand .

Bridal Veil falls near Raglan .

The Lookout near Raglan .

An old couch next to Lake Rotorua .

Statues at the lookout near Raglan

And an edited version ...

The good thing about a lens like this is that people don't even think it's possible that they may be in the picture when they see you pointing the lens to the side of where they are sitting .

As I mentioned this is my favourite lens and it may be a long time before it leaves my D90 :) .

New Tokina 11-16 F2.8 wide angle lens

2010-06-04T17:59:00.000-07:00

I'm really enjoying this new lens , I'm not one to do sharpness tests and that type of thing but here are two samples .

2010-06-01T01:02:00.003-07:00

2010-05-29T23:59:00.000-07:00

Tonight I managed to wire up my module through a SSR to trigger a spark when I take a picture .... it is working up to 1/1400th sec !

Creating separation

2010-05-29T22:38:00.000-07:00

Much of what I post is stuff I am slowly beginning to understand myself - not because I knew it all before .
So a lot of this will sound obvious to those who already know about it but hopefully others will find it useful .... as I record what I am learning in my "photography diary".

Sometimes people get confused as to what the subject of the picture really is - when it is obvious to you .
Quite often you yourself know what you were taking a picture of but somehow it doesn't look the same in the picture .... your brain had a different concept of what you saw as opposed to what the camera produced .
And often I have looked at a good picture and wished I had that kind of scene to photograph in - not realizing that it has been created by the right settings ..... settings that I usually allow my camera to choose for me .

So the trick is to produce an image where there is no doubt as to what the subject is ... because it's really frustrating when they have to ask what the picture is of or complain about the 'subject' being in the way of the scene when it is 'the scene' !

I just went out to get some example pictures so don't expect too much ...... let's say you wanted a picture of a fence post - you walk up to the fence "click" and there it is ..... when people see it some of them might say " nice picture of a farm scene but that fence post is in the way " .... or " the cows aren't properly in focus " and then your face changes colour a few times as you explain that the subject IS the fence post !

Now the above image was taken with my D50 and the 85mm F1.8 lens at F16 which gives maximum depth of field - for that lens ...... let's try the same picture again at F1.8 ....
Now it's more likely to be recognized as a picture of a fence post !

Selecting the correct aperture and actually using depth of field to make the background out of focus helps to show that it isn't meant to be part of the image in the first place and starts to create a separation between the subject and the background .
We can go a step further .... literally , and move closer to the subject which creates even more separation
F16 still makes some of the background look like it could possibly be part of the scene but much less likely to be so ....

F1.8 removes all doubt as to what the subject is now that we are closer to the subject and have less depth of field ....

So depth of field is one way to make it more obvious what the subject is but you can't always use it !
Why not ?
Well what if you are taking pictures at a wedding , you have the bride as the main subject and perhaps the wedding location in the background as part of the scene - not the main subject but something we want to recognize in the final image as part of the memories of the day ..... we still need to have a good depth of field but show that the bride is the main subject .

I never had time to rustle up a bride so late in the weekend and had to stay with the fence post for now . I won't claim that the final image looks great - maybe as I get time I will be able to set up something decent but for the moment all I am trying to do so show the difference between different settings in exactly the same scene .
We have out 'bridal portrait' again at F16 , there's the "reception hall" in the background . [ the sun had just gone down and things are getting dark .... and cold !]

We may be stuck with this depth of field but we can change our other settings to darken the background ....I had the camera in manual and changed the shutter speed until the meter showed "-1.7"

And then add flash to lighten the subject ! .... now the pole , I mean 'bride' is as bright as originally but the background is darker creating separation between the two while still showing both in the final image .

Of course you can always combine the two ... have a shallow depth of field and darker background with flash added to the subject but I'm not going out in the cold again to set up that shot .... maybe another time !
For now though I'll throw in a sample from the pictures I did the other day while trying to work out the settings used in an image on a popular book , basically it involved darkening the background and lighting the subject to create separation while still showing both but leaving no doubt as to what the subject was .....

25 May 2010

2010-05-25T02:12:00.000-07:00

Tonight I managed to fry a solid state relay earthing it though a coil - I think the current was too much for it .

My hopes are still resting on this wireless flash kit which is now triggering another solid state relay .

That will have to do for tonight , maybe while I'm sleeping I'll dream up an answer to what I am going to switch with this relay , without destroying it , to ignite a mixture and give me a fireball to photograph !

2010-05-24T01:07:00.000-07:00

I think I need to modify the spark gap a bit . Tonight I set up some 'almost' empty paint cans and shot them , with the sparking circuit leaning up against the can . I had the sound activated trigger connecting the sparking circuit through its relay and had to unplug the battery each time - I think the load is a bit much for that relay and it sticks a bit .
I shot with the D90 in high speed mode at iso 200 , F9 and 1/1000th sec and only got one real fireball out of the lot , none of the others ignited . Since it was raining I stood in the garage with the can just out of the shelter ....

I should have had a wider lens - I never realized it would creep along the floor .

Flash plus ambient .

2010-05-22T22:45:00.000-07:00

In the beginners flash info post it was mentioned that the newer flash modes make automatic adjustments for how well the ambient lighting is exposed .
When shooting indoors though , the general response of auto flash modes is to try to take over total exposure of the scene at any speeds below 1/60th sec . [ This depends on the model of camera and where you have set the lowest flash speed , also the newer cameras are starting to behave differently when auto-iso is turned on] .

On to the 'tutorial' , I feel that people learn more by trying things themselves so it would be a good idea for all beginners to take a series of images indoors using flash at varying shutter speeds [ at one particular iso and aperture setting ] to see the difference it makes in the ambient lighting .

First set up a subject [ prettier than mine hopefully !] and take some images at different shutter speeds without flash .

Take note of the different colours of the light source[s] . In this image we have one green tinted light and one yellow tinted light adding to the scene .
I chose iso 800 with this large room to help the flash a bit , F5.6 let in enough light and gave enough depth of field for the situation .
As we increase the shutter speed obviously the lights get dimmer . 1/60th has fixed the 'blown out' aspect of the two lights while still retaining the colourful glow of the two different coloured light sources .

At 1/200th the room loses its glow and things start to look a little 'cold' ....

Now we turn on the flash , direct flash in this case [ for no particular reason ]....

So at 1/200th the flash lights up the room nicely but the ambient lighting doesn't look too healthy .

In the above picture the room is well enough lit but has lost the character of the yellow-cast light on the distant wall so we drop the shutter speed back to 1/60th and try again ....

Now the image has warmed up a bit , there is more of the yellow lighting on the far wall though the white light of the flash has slightly washed it out so we drop the shutter speed to 1/40th to allow more of the ambient to soak into the scene - changing the shutter speed makes no difference to the flash , it stays the same , only the ambient changes .

When taking pictures indoors there is less need to worry about the shutter speed going too low , within reason of course . Full power flash fires at about 1/700th second and as it gets weaker it fires faster , 1/16th power fires at about 1/10 000th second - this is what freezes the action and a little camera shake will only cause a slight blur in the ambient lighting only which is so weak in this situation that it is unlikely to be noticed in most images .
I have seen some good indoor shots taken hand-held at 1/6th second
and they look good because the flash is the main light source and freezes most of the motion .

Once again I will mention that it is best to set your camera up on a tripod [ to maintain the same scene ] and take a series of images , perhaps at the same settings I have chosen if you are unsure of your settings , and take note of the ambient lighting in the scene , with and without flash .
That is the best way to learn and understand what is going on in this situation before attempting it in a real life scene where you are under pressure . Since indoor lighting doesn't vary that much in different locations you will find that the settings won't vary much , besides intentional low-light settings like dance floors .
Nikon SB800

22/May/2010

2010-05-22T02:17:00.000-07:00

Tonight I had a few more failed attempts at modifying the circuit board to work with my wireless flash trigger .

I'm not exactly an electronics expert , just an 'Auto Electrician Hack' trying to make this work but once it does .... I can start triggering "fiery events" with it

Trigger failure

2010-05-21T02:04:00.000-07:00

Tonight I managed to connect the high voltage trigger to the flash tube to an external wire and an earth wire which produced a 2mm spark . Unfortunately not enough to ignite the mixture .... yet :(