Digusted with Digital Flashes and Cameras

[Mike Hallock]

I have been photographing weddings since 1979. Three years ago, we decided to go digital. I got a great deal on a Olympus E-300, bought a ProMaster TTL flash unit, several memory cards and off we went. I started having problems with the TTL Flash as soon as my first wedding with the digital aspect. Several messages and replies from Promaster never solved the problem.

Last Saturday...started out wet and stormy...ended up with several (many) underexposed shots that I know if I was working for another studio, I would be fired on the spot and demanded to reimburse the bride and groom.

I don't know what to do. Do I want to continue shooting wedding. YES, of course, because I am a great photographer. But this digital crap is driving me insane! Not only that but what do I do next week and the rest of the year. I can't go on like this.

I NEED SOME HELP! Quickly please.

Thanks for listening.

Mike H.

[Ed Gerson]

Mike - there are days when you wonder if you're a software beta tester or a photographer.

Imagine you're shooting slide film and rediscover the rational workflow of manual settings on your camera and your flash. Imagine: white shirt backlit by the sun, face in shadow, you know what to do. Oh, btw, Ektachrome400.

As soon as you get back to basics and away from the endless LCD noodling the better off you'll be.

[MikeA]

Mike, what did the histogram say for these underexposed images?

Mike.

[Mike Hallock]

Didn't know what a Histogram was until you asked. Okay, I looked at the book and found the histogram on one of the photos. What it says, I don't understand it, ESP HQ, ISO 100, sRGB, 34mm, 1/125, F4.9, 0.0 ??, 0.0, WB: AUTO 0 STEP, Then a bunch of zeros on some symbols that I don't understand.

Hope this is what you are asking about.

Appreciate your help.

Mike H.

[Ed Gerson]

If you have an owner's manual, or if you know where the setting is, check to see if your exposure compensation is set to a minus value. On a Nikon D200, this symbol is a square with a plus mark in one corner and a minus mark in the opposite corner of the square. It's always possible you have a defective spring in your lens which keeps the fstop shut down farther than it should. - Ed

[ChrisPerry]

have you considered that your using old consumer gear to try and do state of the art professional photography? (assuming your still using the oly).

Get a canon 40D and some L glass. It wil make a world of different. Get a 1D3 and L glass and be really amazed. Sure, it's like $9,000 but you'll get the image every time and not be frustrated. There is a reason 70%+ of pros shoot Canon. (25%+ shoot nikon. The rest are just frustrated like you )

back in the film days and before auto AF and TTL and the like one brand was the same as the next. It is no longer the case. It's like anything else that the techno geeks have gotten their hands on - you need an integrated system to get consistent results as no one has an open system (like the PC mobo...and you see how well that has worked out) .

[Dennis_Vied]

Mike, most of us fought that battle years ago. Nikon and Canon have also fought the battle and they finally have flash systems that work TTL with digital. But heed what Chris and the others have said. Back to basics.

The histogram is a visual diagram of exposure. It sounds like what you're quoting is EXIF data, and useful though it is, it isn't a histogram. If you do a Google search for it, you're sure to find a good tutorial on making use of a histogram.

And, if you haven't guessed, the industry is highly computer oriented now. If you want to know something, you can usually find it on the internet, as I'm sure you're discovering.

Many of these online forums have archived discussions of digital TTL flash problems. It sounds like Oly may be just now going through that learning curve.

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