A Walk In The Park - 3) On the Bridge & Backlighting

[wondnaereh]

Very informative video. I have a Nikon D80 with a Nikon SB800 flash. I am curious, is there a different setting to use with my flash to be able to control the amount of ambient light as you mentioned? Will TTL allow this or do I need to try and use a different setting? I am a bit new to this and would so very much like to get some of my background just a little underexposed to add drama to my girlfriends image. Please help?

[boydebrook]

Ambient light has nothing to do with flash power. You use your shutter speed to control that.

Let's say you take a flash picture of someone in a room, flash is at f8 at 1/180. If you want to bring more of the background ambient light in, just lower your shutter speed (1/100 or slower). The light on your subject wont change but the background will be brighter. Give it a try.

[wondnaereh]

@boydebrook I asked about TTL. Does the TTL overide the shutter speed to control ambient light? Does it do this to make the exposure correct and in doing so change the outcome I am trying to achieve?

[boydebrook]

TTL takes the overall light from the scene and then will pop the flash at what it thinks will make every part of the scene exposed. You can adjust flash power and/or EV compensation to change how the background and foreground get exposed.

To be blunt, the camera doesnt know what youre trying to "achieve". It just calculates to get the image to what it thinks is "balanced". You may need to nudge it by what I mentioned to get what you want. Dont count on the camera to do it for you.