Using the on board flash on Canon 40D

macmassey

I have now had my new 40D for about 4 weeks and slowly working my way through the book, taking tons of photos. I am very happy with the results so far and seemed to have resolved my focusing issues. Now I am trying to figure out the on board flash. Seems you need to have an engineering degree to understand the section in the book on the flash. Soooo, any 40D users out there have any tips on how to control the output of the flash? It does seem to control itself somewhat if I'm on auto. Any direction would be greatly appreciated!

ziggy53

macmassey wrote:

I have now had my new 40D for about 4 weeks and slowly working my way through the book, taking tons of photos. I am very happy with the results so far and seemed to have resolved my focusing issues. Now I am trying to figure out the on board flash. Seems you need to have an engineering degree to understand the section in the book on the flash. Soooo, any 40D users out there have any tips on how to control the output of the flash? It does seem to control itself somewhat if I'm on auto. Any direction would be greatly appreciated!

For basic control just use the FEC and let the camera automate the output. I almost never use the on-board flash, greatly preferring the versatility and power of an external flash and modifier (and sometimes a flash bracket as well.) The on-board flash is mostly usable as a fill light so dialing in from -1 to -2 FEC can offer basic fill without the flat appearance. Anything more than FEC -1 and the light gets pretty ugly.

macmassey

ziggy53 wrote:

For basic control just use the FEC and let the camera automate the output. I almost never use the on-board flash, greatly preferring the versatility and power of an external flash and modifier (and sometimes a flash bracket as well.) The on-board flash is mostly usable as a fill light so dialing in from -1 to -2 FEC can offer basic fill without the flat appearance. Anything more than FEC -1 and the light gets pretty ugly.

Thanks! an external flash is defnitely on my Christmas list. For now, I'll just need to get familiar with controlling the output on the built-in flash so I really appreciate your help. I'll play around with the FEC.

divamum

FEC is great. If you can customize your menu, then put it somewhere you can get at it quickly and easily, because if you use flash, you WILL use your FEC, and the quicker you can access it the less cumbersome the interface becomes.

macmassey

divamum wrote:

FEC is great. If you can customize your menu, then put it somewhere you can get at it quickly and easily, because if you use flash, you WILL use your FEC, and the quicker you can access it the less cumbersome the interface becomes.

Sounds great, thanks!

paddler4

At least on my 50D, FEC appears on the top LCD when you have an external flash mounted, so you don't need to add it to a menu. I don't know about the pop-up flash--I don't think I have used mine.

The manuals for flash use are not very comprehensible. The one that you will get with your dedicated flash won't be any better than the section in the camera manual. For a really nice explanation of how flash in general and TTL in particular works, check out Lou Jones et al's Speedlights & Speedlites: Creative Flash Photography. Some of the book is devoted to complex lighting (hence the title), but a good part of it is devoted to the clearest explanation of flash and how to use it that I have seen. They also explain a bunch of other key principles of photography.

Scott_Quier

paddler4 wrote:

At least on my 50D, FEC appears on the top LCD when you have an external flash mounted, so you don't need to add it to a menu. I don't know about the pop-up flash--I don't think I have used mine.

It does on all the xxD cameras. One othe reasons the xxD cameras are "better" than the xxxD cameras - less need to access the menus to get things done - which means you can make the changes much more quickly.