Mixing Manual off camera and TTL on camera flash.

Roy S

Roy S

Messages
172
Name
Roy
Edit My Images
Yes
I've been playing around with a couple of wireless triggers, calumets own.
The wireless does NOT have TTL transfer but does have TTL pass through on the sender to the on camera flash.
Question:
I want to speed up recycle time on my on camera flash by using an additional couple of off camera flashes at maybe 1/8 or 1/16 power. Will my on camera flash reduce its output accordingly via TTL? I think it will but I'm going back to my film days when we had " off the film TTL metering ".
Does a sensor reflect light to the meter in a similar way?
 
I'm not sure about the Nikon system, but Canon actually fires a pre flash and measures that, then pops the main flash at the required output so it wouldn't have measured the extra flashes.

For consistent results I'd say drop to manual on all the flashes, they way you're removing any consistency between exposures caused by TTL, and you'll know which way to adjust each flash to compensate for the others.
 
Roy S said:
I've been playing around with a couple of wireless triggers, calumets own.
The wireless does NOT have TTL transfer but does have TTL pass through on the sender to the on camera flash.
Question:
I want to speed up recycle time on my on camera flash by using an additional couple of off camera flashes at maybe 1/8 or 1/16 power. Will my on camera flash reduce its output accordingly via TTL?
Click to expand...
No.
The only way it will reduce it's output by TTL is if it sees a lower requirement during the TTL pre-flash sequence. And it won't (can't/shouldn't) see the manual flashes at that time.

For TTL work, if you want to reduce the flash recycle time you need to increase the ambient exposure.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the replies Guys
I guess I was clutching at straws then.
Oh well best dig out the old flash meter.
 
Roy S said:
Oh well best dig out the old flash meter.
Click to expand...

Who uses those? Just pop off an exposure and see how it looks on the LCD. Want to see each flash individually just turn the others off and get an idea of what each one is doing.
 
Jonnybrad2001 said:
Who uses those? Just pop off an exposure and see how it looks on the LCD. Want to see each flash individually just turn the others off and get an idea of what each one is doing.
Click to expand...

Me. And Frank Doorhof. And plenty of others. My perception of my LCD is skewed by the ambient light; in a dark studio images on it look much brighter than they really are, and vice versa in daylight.

'Check the histogram' I hear you say.. which is no use at all when parts of the image are deliberately allowed to go black or white. And it doesn't tell you which parts of the image are at what brightness.
 
juggler said:
Me. And Frank Doorhof. And plenty of others. My perception of my LCD is skewed by the ambient light; in a dark studio images on it look much brighter than they really are, and vice versa in daylight.

'Check the histogram' I hear you say.. which is no use at all when parts of the image are deliberately allowed to go black or white. And it doesn't tell you which parts of the image are at what brightness.
Click to expand...

Pretty much this (although I always find what looks correct ends up under-exposed), the small screen is not a good tool to make sure the exposure is correct and it's pretty disheartening to wrap things up and find you'll need to adjust the exposure if you've taken a large number of shots.

If shooting tethered is an option that should save time and trouble.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top