Fill flash - portait outdoors on a sunny day

Hi guys,

Warning, this is a basic/newbie flash question, and to cut to the chase read from the bottom up.

Struggling to find information on this - So, I have a Youngnuo YN565EX and D7000 they work wonderfully together. I have used it in Manual mode (Manual on both flash and camera).

My current style is play with the settings and see what looks good, making educated guesses and trial and error.

This weekend I will be taking a wedding photography workshop, there will be models there and any pictures I take would help with my currently non-existing wedding portfolio. So Manual would be a silly thing to do, but then my knowledge of portraits and A with TTL could be written on my thumb nail.

TTL and Aperture priority - I've had a play (and been told off by my unwilling model, the girlfriend ) and I am impressed, I would probably never use Manual modes again with the flash, unless being artistic or something.

My question is - If it is a lovely sunny day, fast lens 35mm 1.8G, relatively low aperture F4ish ('A' mode and 'TTL' mode) would the flash still fire a fill flash? - IE improve the shadows under the eyes of the subject/model/bride and groom/guests.

Thanks in advance!
Scott

If your flash is of the TTL variety it will provide fill for your subject. You may want to dial down the flash compensation to -0.3 or - 0.7 to make it look less flashed.

Yes. Depending on how bright it is, you might need high speed sync. I'm not sure if that model does it. I know the 568 (I have it) does it, and it works when you need a shutter speed over 1/200 or 1/250...

Somersetscott said:

My question is - If it is a lovely sunny day, fast lens 35mm 1.8G, relatively low aperture F4ish ('A' mode and 'TTL' mode) would the flash still fire a fill flash? - IE improve the shadows under the eyes of the subject/model/bride and groom/guests.

Click to expand...

You probably cannot use f/1.8 in sunlight with flash. Sunny 16 says full bright sun is f/16 at 1/100 second at ISO 100. Or f/11 at 1/200. But you cannot use f/8 at 1/400 second due to maximum shutter sync speed being limited at 1/200 second. F/1.8 at 1/200 second would not be acceptable in bright sun.

Auto FP is the way around that, but both camera model and flash have to offer FP mode. D7000 does (menu E1), allowing at least to 1/4000 second (which might allow f/3 in bright sun), but the Yongnuo flash probably does not provide this feature. A Nikon SB-700 would do it. But then the flash power and range in this special mode is limited, the subject cannot be too far with FP flash mode.
See http://www.scantips.com/lights/flashbasics2b.html for more about FP flash.

As to fill flash, anytime the TTL flash result is not precisely what you want it to be, just use Flash Compensation to tweak it in. Flash Compensation is how we control TTL flash.