I’ve encountered this a few times since buying this camera body and it’s driving me insane.
I tend to set the focus window for the center punch square, not an array sample of squres or just one off-center square. Just the way my brain is wired.
I fear that because I do this, the light meter that talks to the flash is taking false readings from one small area and wrecking the flash metering as the result. Here’s what happened the other night.
Daughter was accepted into the National Honor Society. ( Go kid !! ). I took the 70-210 and my Nikon Speedlight SB-24 flash. I’ve a smaller one but I knew I’d be pretty far away from the stage.
From one second to the next, the flash was either spot-on or wildly over-exposed. Was the small focus target also being used for exposure indexing by the camera, and thus regulating the flash? The kids were almost all wearing black, and were up on stage against a black background for some of the time. I’d snap a shot that was… 4-5 stops overexposed. Then snap one a few seconds later that was lovely.
The camera was shooting on pure Auto. Weird.
And, in the time it’s taken me to post this OP, my 70-210 seems to have seized up. The camera is trying to move the cams in the lens to auto-focus, and it won’ t turn at all. I tried turning the focus barrel gently- it barely moved. ( I tried with the lens OFF of the body… ) It was just being used to shoot in the house. Didn’t get hit, nothing like that. Any idea why the barrel would have seized up so badly that it cannot focus? I cannot move it to use it manually either.
I put another lens on and the autofocus system works. Jeeesh. I love that lens and now it’s not turning. Help ? !?
Am checking the metering field. It may have been on spot instead of field. Usually I would go with spot metering, but in this kind of wild and wooly flash situation I’d have done better to select wide field. Lemme look.
<----Laughing. Okay, I have to fess up. I found out WHY the lens barrel was binding up and could not auto or manually focus.
I use something called Camera Armor. I like how it feels in my hand and how the silicone affords a bit of padding on the body. AND the lens. See the fancypants lens barrel ring? Mine had slid backwards a bit and was binding. Harrumph.
Now, if only the metering issue were as easily resolved. In Auto mode, the light metering is performed using the 3D Color Matrix RGB sensor. I was shooting the offending images last Saturday in Auto mode. I’m a professional camera operator- I get the difference between light metering and focus field sampling. But- this business with the flash is awfully vexing.
I must admit, the chapter on Flash in this manual is pathetic. No mention of how to properly use TTL, only full Auto. I tried to set the flash to TTL, I got no love from the camera body- and the manual seemed to be useless. Unless I’m missing something, which I admit is possible. I’ve been a Nikon man for almost 30 years but the digital SLR is a real mind-bender. I keep forgetting I’m shooting video, not film.
I agree that there are way too many settings on D-SLRs. It’s really easy to make a change and forget you did it. I’m very cautious now about changing ISO, after bumping it for night shooting, and then taking a bunch of pictures the next day without changing it back. It’s just too easy to miss something like that.
No kidding. I owned a Nikkormat body that was built in something like 1957. I got it while I was at S.V.A. Hmmm. I haven’t been a Nikon man for 30 years. More like 27 or so. Still…
I’ve blown the first shot of the day a LOT of times with the ISO thing. But, I know in time I’ll rely upon it as another setting in the mix along with Shutter and Iris.
I will admit, it’s fun as well as vexing. I went from a crappy flat flash photo of daughter to a shot that looked like it was taken ONLY with natural sunlight coming in a side window. All because I can rotate the head of the flash as well as tilt it.
Having the tools are one thing. Not only understanding but mastering them until they are high-speed choices and innately understood is another thing entirely.
Thank god for the “delete” button. I remember burning the first few rolls of B&W before beginning to have instincts that drove the choices of what was dominant between shutter speed and iris.
Nice Googlefu, Adirondack_Mike. Thanks for that. I will print out that fellows instructions and much with that. Fortunately, I was able to get one nicely exposed shot on Saturday night and it was worth the efforts. I solved the washed out problem the way I could quickly- by walking backwards from the subjects and zooming in. A few trys, and I found the right distance so that the subjects were properly exposed.
An entirely bullshit solution IMHO but the only one I had at hand.
I don’t know how the SB-24 plays with the D70. I’ve only used the SB-800 and SB-600 on that cameras. AFAIK (and it looks like adirondack_mike looked it up), the SB-24 is not really designed to work with Nikon’s line of digital cameras. At least you won’t have the full capabilities of 3D Matrix metering and all that jazz.
My suggestion in these situations, where you have a flash that can’t communicate effectively with the camera’s computer because it’s either outdated or a different brand or whatnot, is to either set the flash on “A” or “M”. In your case, I would have set the flash to “M” and dialed in the power manually. As long as your distance-to-subject ratio is pretty much the same (and from your description, it sounds like it is), all you had to do is set the flash power (using the LCD screen and histogram as a guide) and then let it go from there, knowing that all your exposures will be 100% consistent. In fact, in a situation like yours, I’d likely just set the flash to M anyway, even if I had access to all the 3D TTL fanciness.
Nikon’s flash system is very good (much better than Canon’s in my experience), but I have had it blow the crap out of photos that either contained a heck of a lot of black or photos that have backfocused (with the advanced 3D TTL stuff, the camera takes into account how far in front or back you’re focused).
Of all the metering modes, Spot metering is the most difficult to use effectively. Matrix metering is by far the most likely to give good results in the widest range of conditions.
I agree. Spot metering works best in manual mode, where you use the spot to make an educated decision on your exposure based on readings on highlights, shadows, etc., then dial in your exposure. Unless you are proficient in using the exposure lock button, spot metering is not terribly good in any of the auto modes. If you’re photographing someone wearing a suit, you’ll get one exposure if your spot is on the white shirt, another if it’s on the black of the coat, and neither are the “correct” exposure. If you’re in auto mode and don’t use exposure lock, you’ll get two wildly different exposures based on the slightest change in your framing. Not a good idea for fast off-the-cuff shooting. If you’re in any of the auto modes, you’re best off in Matrix metering mode, with center-weighted average being a distant second for most applications (and best used in conjunction with exposure lock).
I mean, sure, I could think of a limited set of situations where keeping it on spot in an auto mode would give you a better exposure than 3D matrix, but those situations are also ones in which it’d be better just to stick to a manual exposure mode anyway. (Personally, I shoot 99% of my work in M).
I don’t think it’s any more complicated than this. Stage photography is always difficult because of the lighting. The camera doesn’t know that you’re interested in the faces as opposed to, say, illuminating the back of the stage. So it tries to turn all that black scenery into 14% gray. Plus you’ve got the stage lights drilling down and overexposing anything that’s non-black.
Solution is to either deliberately underexpose or to choose a manual flash setting that does the job.
Hi I’m back. Readily agreed, spot metering is hardest but in my professional life, I target one area for metering and then light the set around what I know I want in terms of ratios.
Black backgrounds. Eh. Yeah. A bitch. I need to:
A) Do more test shots. See, I did- tons- while they were setting up. I got GORGEOUS flesh tones. And yet, when I walked a smidgen closer and shot from another angle in the audience, blowout ensued. Quite vexing.
B) Practice quickly adjusting menu/button settings to shift light metering from spot to wider pattern. No doubt the reason some were blown out and some were beautiful was where the spot was hitting. Someone’s skin opposed to velvet.
C) Get them to stage the entire event again so that I can competantly capture it.
pulykamell, I always shot M with my film body. I think I need to force myself away from regarding this SLR as a point and shoot with high-end results and start working the shots as I have in the past.
It all depends on how much control you want. I do know some excellent photographers who shoot in aperture-priority or even program mode, but know their cameras well enough that they dial in exposure compensations on the fly when they know the lighting situation will fool the camera’s meter. It all depends on what you’re used to and what gives you the results you want.
For most things, though, setting a D80 to P will give you excellent results. It’s just that the photo situation you described is atypical (lots and lots of black in the frame) and you should be aware of when to override your camera’s decision-making with your own. I use automatic modes when I have absolutely no time to make a quick test shot and I am going rapidly through different lighting conditions. Otherwise, I find that I am more consistent shooting in manual.
