580exII acting as fill light

[Mrslickk]

Hey there, I am new to using speedlites as I normally shoot with natural lighting or studio and I have rented a 580-exII speed light To take some pictures at my sisters birthday. I am shooting with my 5d mk2 and when I attach the speedlite and put it on Ettl I am still getting very slow shutter speeds I'll go from about 1/40 without the speedlite to 1/60 with it. What am I doing wrong?

[kvbarkley]

1/60 is faster than 1/40.

What mode are you in?

[Mrslickk]

Ettl and manual. Yes it does get faster when turning the speedlite on but aren't flashs supposes to help significantly

[RobertTheFat]

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@Mrslickk wrote:
Ettl and manual. Yes it does get faster when turning the speedlite on but aren't flashs supposes to help significantly

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The E-TTL algorithm is extremely averse to blown highlights. In a dark room it will provide only enough light to illuminate the lightest object near the camera. So the rule you have to go by is, "All flash is fill." What I do is put the camera in Tv mode; set the shutter speed at or below the sync speed; and let the aperture go as wide as it needs to. If the environment isn't too dim, it works pretty well.

One thing you can do, if the room is small enough, is set the camera as above, but use bounce flash. Blown highlights aren't nearly as much of a concern, and you get much more even lighting.

Or you can set the flash and the camera to manual and use trial and error to determine the right exposure. One thing you don't want to do with an E-TTL camera is set the flash mode to TTL. The flash will always fire at full power, end everything will be washed out.

[Mrslickk]

So I was playing with it more, and realized I wasn't using the flash as I'm supposed to do. When I took a lighting class using studio lights we would always meter the in camera perfectly. I was thinking that a speedlite would be similar. I now realized that if your in camera meter is underexposed the flash will take care of the rest.

[kvbarkley]

I suggest you get Syl Arena's "Speedilighter's Handbook". All will be explained in excruciating detail.

[diverhank]

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@Mrslickk wrote:
Hey there, I am new to using speedlites as I normally shoot with natural lighting or studio and I have rented a 580-exII speed light To take some pictures at my sisters birthday. I am shooting with my 5d mk2 and when I attach the speedlite and put it on Ettl I am still getting very slow shutter speeds I'll go from about 1/40 without the speedlite to 1/60 with it. What am I doing wrong?'

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It sounds like you are shooting using Av mode?  In Av and Tv mode, the camera uses the speedlight as fill and it sets ISO to 400, and determines the Tv as though there is no flash.  This is per design so you are not doing anything wrong except that you may not achieve what you want.

The most effective use of the flash is to set the camera in manual mode with the desired triangle (Tv and Av and ISO), then use the flash in ETTL mode.  You dial in the flash exposure compensation as needed.  In this configuration, the flash will give you as much light as needed.  This is what you want, it looks like.

I personally dislike too much flash which makes the pictures look "flashy" which usually happen when the majority source of light is from the flash.  A good mix of ambient light and flash will usually produce a very pleasing picture.  I usually set the triangle to 1 or worst case 2 f/stops dark from the ambient light and let the flash fill in the rest.  To determine this, turn on live view and set your Tv, Av to the desired values (normally Tv to 1/focal length and Av to get desired Depth of Field) and then adjust ISO so that the picture is 1-stop underexposed.  Turn off live view and have a go at it.