What’s Your Preference?

scootermcq · #51 (**permalink**) 02-14-2011, 03:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by autofocus

hmmm...you would think in TTL it would handle this, after all, it's "through the lens" metering, and why should the camera think an artificial darkening of the ambient is any different than a real and actual dark ambient???

confused

Me too..... that's why I posted I this earlier and I was really surprised to get different exposures when I put the ND filter on...

Quote:

Originally Posted by scootermcq

Actually, wouldn't TTL still work. TTL - Through the Lens - the flash is controlled by the camera's metering system through the lens and the lens has the ND filter on it, so wouldn't the flash know the appropriate power to flash at in this instance?

autofocus · #52 (**permalink**) 02-14-2011, 03:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by scootermcq

Me too..... that's why I posted I this earlier and I was really surprised to get different exposures when I put the ND filter on...

what if you tried TTL flash while not in camera's manual mode...say P or A mode?? would the results be different?

candleman · #53 (**permalink**) 02-15-2011, 01:40 AM

interesting stuff.
1. What is e-TTL2
2. What metering mode are you guys using (Nikons Pattern/Matrix metered TTL-BL will act differently to spot metered TTL)
3. are you bouncng the flash or are you using direct flash. (my guess is bounced flash wil have some effect on ambient. I think to accuratley replicate the test it needs to be done with direct flash. (but i'm sure you guys are already doing this)

looking forward to seeing the comparison images.

archersdad · #54 (**permalink**) 02-15-2011, 02:15 AM

Here are my results from a quick and dirty test. The camera was mounted on a tripod and focus set to manual but I bumped the camera a bit while changing filters. Full manual. ISO 100, f/1.8, and 1/640th cut out almost all ambient light. Spot metering, metered off the white in the image. eTTL2. Flash pointed straight ahead and zoomed to 14mm. Captured in JPG and opened in photoshop to resize them down to 700px.

From the histograms, it looks like the flash slightly overcompensated and overexposed the image taken with an 8 stop ND filter by about 1/2 stop. The box has a matte finish but there was enough reflection from the direct flash to wash out the contrast quite a bit.