Re: [Leica] Re: M6TTL fill flash

[Henry Ambrose <henryambrose@home.com>]

Brougham wrote:

>If you're only using available light, do you find your Leica accuracy
>equal to the Nikon?  If so, you'll probably be happy with the flash
>performance, too.
No, not overall exposure accuracy but rather the part supplied by the 
flash. I want the flash exposure to be as accurate as what I get from 
Nikon. (or nearly so)

>Actually, you may get worse color rendition with a small fill.  When
>the available-to-flash ratio is 8:1, the flash isn't really going to
>help balance tungsten lighting.  Worse, now you can't just blindly
>color correct.  If you add cyan to remove the tungsten cast, the
>subjects which are lit by your flash will end up too blue.  Take a
>look at the family Christmas shots I posted earlier, and you can see
>the color on some walls going from yellow (close to a lamp) to neutral
>(closer to the flash).  In contrast, I've been able to totally color
>correct shots I've taken with tungsten lights with *no* flash.  If
>you're really concerned with color rendition, you might want to slap
>an amber filter over your flash, so that all of your light sources
>will be similar, and then color correcting is a lot easier.
Again no, the slight extra exposure from fill will add enough to keep 
shadow areas from shifting ugly as they are prone to do with color film 
thats not gotten enough light.
Its not about balancing for ambient tungsten. Tungsten is lacking in blue 
wavelengths and throwing a little daylight (via flash) into the mix 
simply adds to the exposure- especially important in the shadows.

My color negative film recipe is: 
Set the camera for the expected normal exposure.
Set the flash for anywhere from 2 to 3 stops under that ambient exposure.
Fire away. 

By paying attention to your compositions you can nicely isolate the 
subject from the surroundings and get better color rendition of the 
subject. Let the surroundings fall as they may.

You're adding, in proportion, more exposure to the lower zones than to 
the higher zones. So the very slight "over exposure" that happens is 
still well within color negs ability to record. (and is usually helpful 
anyway)

Henry