Neil van Niekerk has a bunch of nice stuff written up about metering and the use of flash. On the subject of exposure compensation, he writes:
Using the exposure compensation dial on your camera is only useful when the area that you are metering off, is consistently darker or lighter than "average". Then you could simply dial in the exposure compensation to have the subject appear appropriately darker or lighter. I also use exposure compensation to bracket exposures.
I keep exposure compensation on a lot of the time for an advanced reason. As a fan of raw format, I keep exposure compensation dialed up about 2/3 stop all the time to make the camera "expose to the right" compared to its usual programming. If I find the highlights are blowing out I'll pull back a bit.
Your camera may have exposure compensation for both the camera and its flash. I used both the other week when taking a picture of a friend who was sitting by a window, and I didn't want the outdoor scene to blow out. I'm no expert at flash, but for several frames I adjusted exposure compensation on both the camera and the flash until both the subject and the outside background lighting were as balanced as I could get them.
Your camera may have exposure compensation for both the camera and its flash. I used both the other week when taking a picture of a friend who was sitting by a window
On the Canon system - I thought the camera exposure compensation setting would override the flash setting. So you can adjust one or the other but not both?
Entirely possible I'm wrong.
Greg "Tis better keep your mouth shut and be thought of as an idiot than to open your mouth and remove all doubt"
Thanks all for the quick responses, more than anything I think I just need to do some experimenting to see if what I've read makes sense in a practical way.
On the Canon system - I thought the camera exposure compensation setting would override the flash setting. So you can adjust one or the other but not both?
Entirely possible I'm wrong.
I believe you can adjust both. The camera's exposure compensation is for ambient light. Flash exposure compensation is for the subject. I could be wrong, but that is the way I understand it.
Comments
I use it a lot in dark pubs shooting bands.
Your camera may have exposure compensation for both the camera and its flash. I used both the other week when taking a picture of a friend who was sitting by a window, and I didn't want the outdoor scene to blow out. I'm no expert at flash, but for several frames I adjusted exposure compensation on both the camera and the flash until both the subject and the outside background lighting were as balanced as I could get them.
On the Canon system - I thought the camera exposure compensation setting would override the flash setting. So you can adjust one or the other but not both?
Entirely possible I'm wrong.
"Tis better keep your mouth shut and be thought of as an idiot than to open your mouth and remove all doubt"
I believe you can adjust both. The camera's exposure compensation is for ambient light. Flash exposure compensation is for the subject. I could be wrong, but that is the way I understand it.
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