Bronica Sq-B with Mecablitz Metz fill in flash help

[beezness]

Iv'e been using a Bronica Sq-B (with a 80mm lens) with a Mecablitz Cl-1 in the daylight for full length portaiture with fill in flash but am really struggling to obtain natural looking images.

I'm using fuji velvia 50 film and i've been bracketing 1 stop under and over (taking an incident light reading at the subjects face) but all of the images look a bit off. Its the first time i have used fill in flash in daylight with an Mf camera and don't really know my ar*e from my elbow when it comes to it. I dowloaded the pdf of the manual for both the camera and the flash but neither seem to offer that much help on the issue so any advice would be greatly appreciated.

thanks

(Ill try and upload the images tomorrow when i've got access to a scanner)

 

[Sam_G]

Iv'e been using a Bronica Sq-B (with a 80mm lens) with a Mecablitz Cl-1 in the daylight for full length portaiture with fill in flash but am really struggling to obtain natural looking images.

I'm using fuji velvia 50 film and i've been bracketing 1 stop under and over (taking an incident light reading at the subjects face) but all of the images look a bit off. Its the first time i have used fill in flash in daylight with an Mf camera and don't really know my ar*e from my elbow when it comes to it. I dowloaded the pdf of the manual for both the camera and the flash but neither seem to offer that much help on the issue so any advice would be greatly appreciated.

thanks

(Ill try and upload the images tomorrow when i've got access to a scanner)

Here's your first issue. Velvia is a high saturation landscape film and very hard to use for portraits. Something like Provia is more suitable

 

[Kev M]

How many stops below the key light are you setting your flash to?

 

[beezness]

thanks i will try the Provia 100f in the future

By key light do you mean what i've taken a reading of and set on the camera? (apologies for my ignorance) if so; 1 stops below as to what the manual advises.

"To maintain a balanced range of highlights, for instance in order to retain the character of the shadows, it is advisable to select the automatic aperture on the flashgun one setting lower than the aperture adjusted on the camera. In the above example the camera was adjusted to f/8. Consequently, we advise you to set an aperture of f/5.6 on the flashgun."

 

[paul139]

I'm certainly no expert but as said above I would use a lower saturated film and generally set flash at least 2 stops below ambient light. So ambient f8, flash f4, hope this helps.

 

[Kev M]

I'd say that one stop less isn't really enough, try 1.5-2 instead. I assume you're metering for the ambient, setting the exposure on the camera next and then setting the flash gun?

What light meter are you using?

Have you got any of the images scanned so you can illustrate your problems?

 

[beezness]

apologies for the delay in uploading the image. The scan has taken away most of the image quality but i hopefully you'll be able to get the gist of my problem.


(excuse the pose and composition; just getting used to the camera with the flash)

link to the larger image on flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonathanbeeharry/5086458046/sizes/l/

The light-meter i'm using is a sekonic twinmate L-208.

I plan to go out later today and try again... if the rain stops

 

[Kev M]

I can't see too much wrong with the lighting on that. What do you feel the problem is?

 

[excalibur2]

I used to use a flash meter (Massodax FM1)..if I get back into portraiture would use it again erm well if I can get my grand-children to sit still.

 

[beezness]

Right...
Now i have computer access back.

I can't see too much wrong with the lighting on that. What do you feel the problem is?

I think that the lighting isn't right in the first set of images, i would of preferred the model to be more lit but then i'm wary that the brighter the model is the the darker the background will be, it seems a lot of detail is being lost on the model to obtain a happy medium.

This is what iv'e acheived since my last post, i went out again, taking on the advice to bracket 1/2 stops and i think i'm on my way. I shot two rolls of film one of just the scene so that i had a basis for comparison when looking at the shots with my model in them.



(link to larger image)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonathanbeeharry/5098918919/sizes/l/



(link to larger image)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonathanbeeharry/5099518782/sizes/l/

the scans are quite poor quality but hopefully you get the gist.

I think i'm getting there and i plan to go out and re-shoot again soon. I still have two rolls of the Velvia 50; so i'll use them up aswell as trying the shots on the Provia film.