In this video I compare shooting TTL
flash against manual flash in my small
home studio.
Hello I'm Gavin Hoey and
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Now when it comes to shooting flash either
in my small home studio or on location,
I always run the same theory...
it's manual mode in the camera and
manual flash but over the recent years
TTL flash has been getting better, and
better so maybe it's time I reconsidered that...
So in this video I'm going to compare TTL flash,
with my trusted manual flash.
So let's get a light set.
Let's get a model in.
Let's get shooting.
So to help me out today I've got the
amazing JAS.
Jas is gonna be the model
for this, and as you can see she's got
this whole retro sci-fi look going on.
Why? Well because it's much more fun to
do that, than just straightforward
head-shots.
Now what I'm gonna do is set up
three different lighting scenarios and
I'm gonna use TTL, and then I'm going to
repeat the entire thing using manual
mode, and I look at the differences and
see how they compare.
So let's get going and the first setup is
going to be a really simple setup.
I'm gonna shoot in TTL first,
let's see how long it takes to
get a good correctly exposed picture.
Jas you ready?
Okay here we go..
Yeah first picture straight out of the
camera....absolutely bang-on exposure
this is easy, great... away we go... lets
take a few pictures... lean back against
the wall for me, and put a shoulder
against the wall.
Yep that's brilliant, that's it great
stuff, okay, let's move the light round a
little bit... bit more dramatic lighting
coming in from the side with this simple
lighting setup.
The end results are actually really good,
it's very fast to set up,
moving the lights around isn't a
problem, and although there is a slight
difference in the exposure shot-to-shot
honestly I could live with this.
So for the second look I'm gonna make it a
little bit more challenging this time.
I've got a shiny silver background as
well as Jazz's shiny silver dress, that
might throw the TTL out, and I'm also
going to throw in a background light
halfway through...
this should be a bit more of a challenge..
to be honest I wasn't expecting TTL to do
well here but actually it's doing much
better than I thought.
All right, pop a light in behind
you and this should give you a nice a
bit of flare.
Sideways off...
so let's bring her around to the side...
okay point it down at me.
Yeah, this is proving a bit more tricky.
I'm not totally happy with the exposures
here, but that is something I can easily
adjust with a bit of flash exposure compensation.
So the last set up is going
to be the most challenging.
It is a sort of hero lighting, very dramatic
edge lighting effect...
Now I want to shoot to f/2.8 ...
which means I need to go beyond my
flash sync speed limit,
high speed sync flash...
this is gonna really stretch TTL,
let's see how it goes.
I can see this is really over exposing
fortunately with TTLof course,
I can adjust my exposure compensation... really simply,
Angle these just a tiny bit towards the
background...just to pick up a little bit of
that grey background... a hint...
Now that's slightly ruined my TTL,
so I need to reset somewhere in the
middle, right Jas we are off...
Here we go.
OOP... suddenly gone way too bright,
that's weird, why did that happen?
I don't know... that suggests it will keep
going yeah...
this is proving a lot more challenging...
ah that's too bright, and it
went steadily downhill from there.
Sometimes the exposure would be okay,
that it would be too dark, and then it
would be too bright, there was no rhyme
or reason to it, and I called it a day there.
Okay so, now we're gonna do that
all over again, but this time I'm gonna
switch the mode of my trigger from TTL
to manual... yeah okay,
so first things first.
I need to take the meter reading
just to see what the exposure is.
I'm gonna aim for f/4, that's f/2.5 wow..
that made a difference at f/3.6, f/4.5....
oh Bingo...
Compared to TTL, this does feel painfully
slow to set up.
Right to make this a bit
more dramatic, let's take the light put
it right to the side...
okay meter towards the light,
and yeah, no yeah, that's
probably right actually...
stay there, that's good and f/4.5, f/4
there we are, good.
Okay a little bit of action, bring the
gun round to me quickly, and there you go.
Okay, the setup wasn't quick,
but at least I've got the same exposure,
shot after shot after shot,
and we'll start by taking a flash meter
reading and see what we get..
aiming for f/4 still...so we might
as well get it absolutely bang-on.
f/4, there we are no problem right..
where we go with manual exposure,
I not only get full control of the light but
also consistency, and these look
perfectly well exposed shot after shot.
so we turn that background light on so
let's put it into manual mode, and let's
start middle of its power range about
1/8 power, and we'll see how that goes.
Okay and looking at me,
look into the light ...
point the gun at the light...
take that light out... bang!
I do have a bit of flair in my pictures,
and having that backlight on manual just
gives me that extra level of control...
now I want to shoot to f/ 2.8 which
means I need to go
beyond my flash sync speed limit.
High-speed sync flash,
I can't use my flash meter...
so my first few shots are
going to be working out the exposure.
Here we go, getting there, take me a
couple of shots just to nail the exposure.
Okay, that's terrific... lovely... superb.
Well that was a great fun shoo,t and
along the way I've learned a few things
starting with the basic flash, where TTL
absolutely blew me away...
it was so quick to set up.
I could move the lights around
and keep shooting, I loved it
looking at the pictures,
they were definitely more consistent in
manual flash, and that really showed
itself when I switched to the shiny
backgrounds, TTL gave a slight under
exposure, easy to correct with a bit of
flash exposure compensation,
but put in the backlight
and manual worked better for me..
then there was the two lights,
the more dramatic lighting which was a clear win
for manual flash, owing to the fact that
me... on this day in this studio and these
lights TTL was a complete failure,
so the question is...
which should you use?
Well it depends...
both are really good in certain
circumstances, for me...
the consistency of manual in my studio,
means manual flashes
the way I'm likely to stay...
but if you're running and gunning on
location TTL can be brilliant...
and looking ahead TTL
combined with TCM flash functionality
means that you can get in the right
ballpark with TTL, and then fine tune
with manual, but that's the subject for
another video.
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button I'm Gavin Hoey...
thanks for watching.