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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Horoscope Fish" data-source="post: 635907" data-attributes="member: 13090">It's impossible to say precisely what settings will work for any particular example, what you need to do is learn what the different settings do and how they affect exposure. Since really good photography can't be reduced to simple sets of instructions that work perfectly all the time you, as the photographer, have to learn what your tools are and how to apply your understanding of those tools to get the effect you want under varying circumstances. There's really no way around this and yes, it can be difficult at first. To even TRY and address a particular situation and what settings I'd use, I'm forced to make a lot of assumptions but I'll give you an example. I'm going to assume I'm using a single, on-camera flash where I, or the subjects will be moving around a lot and where there is some degree of ambient light (enough to read by) and while this light may be changing to some degree, it is is relatively constant, such as an indoor party in a well lit room (again, "well lit" to me means there is enough ambient light that I could comfortably read a book in it). In this situation I would choose a workable ISO (probably between ISO 100 and ISO 400 but specifics would depend on the amount of ambient light). Personally, I like using ISO200 with flash quite a bit, but that's just me; that's not any kind of suggestion and certainly not a Rule of any kind. Exposure mode would be Manual with a shutter speed of 1/125 and an aperture of f/4. Metering mode would be Matrix. You could also use Aperture Priority here. I'm simply accustomed to shooting in Manual but Aperture Priority would be the go-to semi-automatic mode for this, in my opinion. Making the assumption I can bounce my flash off a ceiling, I would adjust the Flash Exposure Compensation (FEC) setting to -1.5EV. Flash would be set to use TTL. I'm not a huge fan, typically of TTL but in this situation I'd be willing to give it a go. Using TTL will keep exposure looking good even with minor changes in things like distance between the camera and subject and minor variations in the ambient light. Those settings would also allow me to blend the ambient light, yet still introduce some flash to soften and fill in shadows. If I thought I needed more flash power, I would reduce the FEC (to say, -1.0EV) and see if that got me where I wanted to be. If that wasn't enough, I'd probably bump my ISO or open my aperture a little. Under NO circumstances would I use Auto-ISO. Full stop. Now someone else might approach such a situation entirely differently, but either way it is going to boil down to 1) Understanding the tools you have and, 2) Applying that understanding to the situation at hand and being able to make adjustments based on the exact circumstances in front of you.</blockquote>

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