flash output confusion

[candleman]

Help me figure out what this guy is on about.
Last weekend i went to a camera club groupshoot with models.. i was invited via a forum.. never met these guys before.
Anyway.
One guy said something to confuse me RE: flash
he was joking about the “P” for professional thing.. and then he goes into the “off camera light is the only way to improve image quality for this type of work..

OK i agree there

Then he goes into saying
“who needs a flash meter, all i do is set my flash to f/8 if my aperture is f/8, and its always the same”



I asked him via PM later how he accounts for
1. Loss through the umbrella,
2. Light bounced back through the umbrella, (50% bounces back rather than going through the brolly)
3. Changes in Distance from the subject

He said basically..” i always keep the flash about 2 meters away... and if i’m at f/8 i set my flash to f/8 then its always the same”
he’s shooting through a 27” umbrella with some or other old manual flash, and an e-bay trigger.

How on earth does the off camera manual flash vary its power by inputting an aperture setting???
It does not seem at all logical.
I understand how this happens ON camera, by inputting the aperture, but that automatically takes a distance into account by reading the distance info from the lens in mm, and the ISO from the camera... but off camera.. ?? i'm at a loss


I’m pretty confident changing the aperture/ISO when in manual mode does nothing th the flash power.. 1/1 is always 1/1
Unless he’s using “A” mode on the flash instead of "M",
then by inputting ISO and aperture.. then the flash varies an output..
but can “A” even do that without distance info feed from the lens
I understand roughly that lighting ratio’s are measured in stops... but really.. this is not what i believe he’s aiming at. and i think his understanding is flawed.

I don’t want to be an a-hole by saying this, the results don’t speak for themselves i’m sorry to say.. not impressed

Have i missed something along the path of strobism or is there a technique i’ve overlooked??
Or is he just dreaming...


(EDIT)
basically the reason i'm asking is because
i realised it takes me a few too many test shots to get the light right.. if there is a better system i want to know. but my results ow i'm happy with.. i just want to get faster)
one session i had 12 minutes with the model and about 1/2 of that was tweaking the flashes (using 2 strobes and a reflector

[zona5101]

If there wasn't an umbrella involved I'd say using "A" on his flash would make his set up make sense as the flash will vary the output by reading the light coming back and hitting the sensor built into the flash. But using an umbrella, shoot through or bounce, will give false reading of the returning light and shut the flash down too soon. I think it is his 2meter distance rule is what is keeping the lighting predictable.

[Benji]

I don't know how he does it but here is how I would do it. I would shoot in manual mode, and through experimentation I would discover what the correct aperture is when using a certain flash unit at full power (100% of the time) in a certain umbrella (100% of the time) at a certain distance (100% of the time) at a certain ISO (100% of the time.) Provided everything stays exactly the same the exposure will always be exactly the same.

Lastly I would shoot in Raw 100% of the time so if something was off a little off I could tweak it in Photoshop.

Benji

[RussHeath]

Jared, I don't know how all of the older flashes work or what this guy was using, but I have a very old Canon flash that has different sections of the dial that are marked in distances from the subject. Then, each section has aperture marks. Everything is fully manual, so the aperture marks are just Canon's estimate of what manual power level would be needed at a given distance for a given aperture.

What I'm trying to say is that setting his flash to "f/8" may really just be a fixed power setting on his particular flash. If so, then as Benji said, he just knows that with his given equipment set in a given way he gets reliable results.

Like you, I take several test shots to set up a room. I usually take at least one or two shots with each light as I add lights to the shot. So if I'm using 3 or 4 sources, this can take a while. If I've used a similar setup before, I can usually get all the lights right on the first or second try, but with a new setup it takes longer. I think the only way to avoid the shoot and chimp method is to either A) use the same gear the same way every time (boring IMO), or B) buy a light meter. There is still some setup involved, but I suspect that once you learn to use it, a light meter will be faster than shooting and checking.

And I wouldn't get too worked up about that guy . . . people who are so dogmatic are often compensating for an underlying lack of understanding.

Happy Holidays!

[LoveDSLR]

Manual flash. Set the flash dial to match film ISO, estimate distance and look up aperture value on flash then set it on the camera. 1/2, 1/4 etc. power settings are also available.

Auto flash. Set the flash dial to match film ISO, estimate distance and look up which auto range covers that distance. Select that auto range and set the camera to that aperture.

The only two things that can be set on the camera are the flash sync shutter speed and aperture.

Like many old timers that can set their manual flash and camera on the fly, this photographer already worked out his own 'formula' with his equipment.