Underexposed indicator blinking in Manual Mode when you strobe flash

[thekid]

Hey everyone, I'm pretty new to studio strobing. I just got Elinchrom D-lite 4 kits. Everything is connected and work just fine, but there's one problem. My 5d mark ii keep telling me that my shot is underexposed when I click shutter halfway to focus and meter. All my shots came out just right. It's really annoying that the exposure compensation is continuously blinking at -2 when try to focus. All my shots are in Manual exposure mode.

Wonder if something's wrong? any advice or suggestion?

Thank in advance.

[zona5101]

cameras are pretty smart these days...but how are you expecting your camera to know the lights are in the room and ready to fire???

[thekid]

Even with the high ambient light in the room, still it says underexposed.
but is it normal? is everyone who use strobe lighting have that problem? anyway to avoid that? I'm just worry that there is something with the flash i just bought or the camera itself, with the blinking and all.

[i speak in math]

The camera is trying to get the ambient room light up to middle gray. Anything less and the camera tells you it is underexposed. You don't want ambient light in your picture (well, I usually don't). So, you have to underexpose the ambient by 3 stops or so. Your camera will blink at you because of that. Just ignore it. You are setting up the lighting yourself and you know if its right. You are smarter than the camera.

[candleman]

Originally Posted by thekid

Even with the high ambient light in the room, still it says underexposed.
but is it normal? is everyone who use strobe lighting have that problem? anyway to avoid that? I'm just worry that there is something with the flash i just bought or the camera itself, with the blinking and all.

yes, its normal


ispeakinmath nailed it prettymuch.

you are not exposing for ambient.. you are exposing for flash+ambient, or just flash

i prettymuch ignore the in camera light meter.

[thekid]

So now i know that the camera light meter isn't matter for external strobing, but there must be a way to tell the camera to not blink. Is there a way to turn the exposure compensation off in manual exposure mode, since it's irrelevant.

[OsmosisStudios]

Originally Posted by thekid

So now i know that the camera light meter isn't matter for external strobing, but there must be a way to tell the camera to not blink. Is there a way to turn the exposure compensation off in manual exposure mode, since it's irrelevant.

It's not exposure compensation: thats the meter telling you that, at your settings, you're gonna be way underexposed. There's no way to stop it from blinking: it's an idiot-proofing measure. Surely it isn't THAT annoying.

[thekid]

wonder why they even use the meter in manual mode, maybe it has to do something with TTL. so if the strobe flash has TTL or with sync cable to get the camera that we are using external flash instead wireless transmitting without TTL, the meter would meter differently? i'm really new at this thing, so i don't know if that sentence even make sense or not. if i'm wrong, what's right?

[candleman]

Originally Posted by thekid

wonder why they even use the meter in manual mode, maybe it has to do something with TTL. so if the strobe flash has TTL or with sync cable to get the camera that we are using external flash instead wireless transmitting without TTL, the meter would meter differently? i'm really new at this thing, so i don't know if that sentence even make sense or not. if i'm wrong, what's right?

no.. the meter is essential if you are shooting manual with ambient .....or manual ambient + TTL Flash.

the meter wouldnt act any differently when using off-camera TTL, as it does with on-camera TTL.

the TTL flash will fire the strobe as hard as necesary to gain the correct exposure.. but the meter will only ever read the ambient in the room based on your metering mode before you hit the shutter release.
once you hit the shutter release and allow the flash to fill the room, the flash fires to gain the exposure you dialed in in terms ot the FLASH EXPOSURE COMPENSATION you dialed in.

Bascally... they are two different exposures within the same frame.
one for ambient.. one for flash

[bhursey]

Is it only blinking when you focus? If so if you are gonna do a series of shots and not move just make your focus button the back AELock button. So you can focus once and shoot many. I don't think my 20d blinks but it does show the exposure down by 2+ stops when shooting manual off camera strobes.


PS: Im jealous of your 5d MKII