> > I'm having trouble with wireless flash, via 550EX and ST-E2 on a > 1V, and an > umbrella. > Flash head zoomed back to 24mm to fill the umbrella. Flash is about 14" > from the umbrella. > > In ETTL it seems to be hit and miss. Sometimes I'm getting the green "OK > exposure" light and sometimes I don't. Is there a problem with the > pre-flash not being strong enough to bounce from the umbrella to the > subject for a reading from the camera (umbrella is 4-5' from subject)? >
It would be interesting to see how the film/prints turn out. I've used the ST-E2, one 550EX on an umbrella with the EOS-3 about a dozen times for portrait work, with the exception of one session where it severely underexposed(more later), this combo has been perfect when the umbrella was 6 to 8 feet away from the subject. 14" distance from the flash to the umbrella seems a bit short (my set up is close to 20" to spread the light wider to the umbrella), what is the type of umbrella you are using? is it translucent white (which will waste a lot of light) or opaque (either solid white or silver specular) ? The pre-flash when you use this set-up comes from the ST-E2 and has nothing to do with the 550 pre-flash reaching the subject, how's the battery condition in the ST-E2? Side note, I never bought the Power Booster for the EOS-3 so I simply use the 2CR5 battery from the EOS-3 for the ST-E2 after I've use the battery in the camera for a while. The one time this combo turned out well under exposed is probably due to the camera not reading the ISO code on the film canister properly, this had happened once when I used the flash on the camera directly and didn't realize the problem until the film and the prints came back the next day, after scratching my head for quite some time to try to figure out what the problem was, I finally pressed the ISO button on the camera and saw 2000 rather than 200 of the film that I was using, this caused the more than 3 stops underexposure, so I highly suspect the one time the SE-E2/550EX/umbrella didn't work well was due to the wrong ISO information the camera read off the film canister, but since I've already put other rolls of film through the camera by then, I have no way to verify this was indeed the problem. BTW, I typically set the camera to manual mode at f 8 and 1/125 sec, leave the flash on A-ETTL, this has always worked out great even with the umbrella, provided the umbrella/flash is within range of the flash power output. I'll post some images tomorrow if you are interested. Ken * **** ******* *********************************************************** * For list instructions, including unsubscribe, see: * http://www.a1.nl/phomepag/markerink/eos_list.htm ***********************************************************
