Question by adzling21: Do I need a light meter to figure out the right camera settings when using a strobe?
I’m new to flash photography, and I’m having a little trouble. I’ve attached my camera with a PC cord to a White Lightning 1600 unit, but without a light meter I seem to have to way to know in advance what the exposure will be. Am I missing something?
Thanks!
Best answer:
Answer by gladivs@sbcglobal.net
Using an external, manual flash is a little different because you cannot use the camera’s metering system. The camera will be metering based on the ambiant light so any sort of flash is going to overexpose.
You need to set your camera to manual exposure, and set your shutter and aperture manually. Normally the shutter is your camera’s sync speed or slower. Might be 1/200 or so (should be in the manual).
You can estimate the aperture if you know the Guide Number (GN) of the flash. If this is the X1600, the web site indicates the GN is 236 at full power, and 118 at 1/4 power. Paul C Buff is not a real advocate of GN by the way!
At ISO 100, if you divide the GN by the distance to the subject, you will get your F-stop number. For example, at full power and the subject 8 feet from you, the aperture you want is 236/8 = 29.5 (as you might guess you rarely use powerful units like this at full power – many times rarely over 1/2 power).
This gets you started, you’ll need to look at your LCD to see if the exposure makes sense or not. Learning to read the histogram helps a lot, too, as if you are too light or too dark you should be able to tell.
Good luck!
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