How to focus manually when you flash and the exposure for ambient light is to low ?

[Pelu2010]

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Hey , 

 

I am starting to use speed lights with my sl2s and I am wondering on how do I solve this problem. 

I need a fast time because the scene is bright, but without flash it is dark.

Now if I try to focus my manual lenses I can’t see the sharpness. 

If I flash the picture looks ok , but I need to make adjustments to the time. 

So to focus I need to go to 0,5 or 1 Second and the back down the exposure to 1/200 to make the shot. 

But I would not get any reaction of the model if I would shoot a person this way. 

 

Is there any way to solve this? 

I am shooting in manual mode with a Godox speed light and a remote attached to the camera. 

Thanks 

Peter 

[Slender]

4 hours ago, Pelu2010 said:

So to focus I need to go to 0,5 or 1 Second and the back down the exposure to 1/200 to make the shot. 

But I would not get any reaction of the model if I would shoot a person this way. 

 

Is there any way to solve this? 

 

Yes, it is common to all mirrorless as yo see real time exposre simlated in the EVF.

To solve this on the Leica, you need to cut OFF exposure preview in M mode. (P-A-S only). I dont have the camera with me right now bt it's somewhere in the menus... It lets yo dial your speed w/o affecting the brightness of the EVF. Works a charm for flashes for me.

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[Photoworks]

in addition to what it has said above you can open the f-stop to focus and close to shoot. Some people implement a 3 stop ND filter to keep the F-stop from closing to much while using flash.

I have used a Godox AD200 at very low power outside with trigger on a bright day at 1/640 and not Curtin vignetting manifested on the SL2

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[RoySmith]

The SL2’s flash sync speed is 1/250s

was this taken using high speed sync?
 

[Slender]

Yeah I am wondering if flash was at all seen by the camera... if so that is awesome news but I prefer to stay cautious...

[Photoworks]

14 hours ago, RoySmith said:

The SL2’s flash sync speed is 1/250s

was this taken using high speed sync?
 

Godox has only manual mode on SL2.

It studio I shoot at 1/125 because the duration of studio strobe is longer .

In the shot above she was in the shade with not light in the eyes. The Godox was in the soft box at 1/4 power. Since the flash is so quick at 1/4 the Curtin just matched well.

you can see the flash in the eyes

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[RoySmith]

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Well done. You really have to know your equipment to know when this will work. 

[LocalHero1953]

Puzzled by this. I wouldn't expect a shorter duration strobe to make HSS easier - more the opposite ('normal' HSS relies on extending the duration of the strobe to ensure the whole of the sensor 'sees' it). I did some tests a while back with the SL and found I could use a strobe at faster than 1/250 - I can't remember the limit (I decided in the end to keep to 1/250) but as the shutter speed increased (i.e. reduced shutter slit width) there was both horizontal vignetting from the curtain and dimming of the image. 

But whatever works🙂! 

Edited May 7, 2021 by LocalHero1953

[Photoworks]

To clarify there are 2 reason why I have used flash in this photo. she wanted to shoot in that spot and the usual problems are that light in the shade of trees doesn't always have the right direction for portraits, most important is that everywhere around was green grass that many times reflects green on the skin.

I started with a base exposure in M mode with no flash , lightly underexposed , then added the flash, few tests and I set it to give me about 1/2 stop over ambient light.
It is quite simple if your ambient light doesn't change much.

Flash duration. The lower the flash power a shorter time it is going to light up. I remember shooting an ad for champagne in the days of film, the challenge was to freeze the liquid with no motion blur. At that time I needed f45 on a 4x5 camera. Using 3 studio strobes from elinchrom at full power would give me the correct exposure, but been full power the duration was to long, the solution was to use 15 strobes a very low power to reach f-45.

@LocalHero1953  HSS works in a similar way in that micro flashes in continuous mode illuminate the sensor when the sliver of the exposure goes down. This is only doable with TTL function of the flash of the camera, in this case only Leica SF-60 would work in remote . The problem is that the flash has to be very close to the subject since the power in HSS is very low, and even more once you ad diffusion in the from of it. It seam that this way you can only shoot a few picture before the flash battery starts complaining and in my experience it does not last a portrait shoot.

My hope is that leica opens the TTL function to other companies like Elinchrom and Profoto, a better solution would be to use Elinchrom Hi-Sync .

https://www.elinchrom.com/learn/hss-hs.html

sorry for the long story, but sometime you just need to try different options to know what works. Shooting at 1/640 at f2 and flash was a happy coincidence . In other cases it is preferred to use ND filter to get back down to 1/250 and F2

[LocalHero1953]

Yes, a tricky situation. I have almost the exact issue to deal with tomorrow: my first portrait shoot in over a year, outdoors of course. The weather is expected to be sunny, and I will be looking for a shady spot for her in a garden setting. I shall be doing the same trial and error with flash; I find it difficult, though, to judge fill-in flash from the EVF or LCD - before now I've gone home to find, on a big monitor, that I've overdone it, and flattened the face.

[Pelu2010]

All my tests with HSS have failed. 

I tried to contact godox and Leica to get any feedback on the issue.

I hope this gets solved in one of the next firmware updates.

To me HSS is very important.

I don´t want to go back to ND Filters. 

Anyone has any experience with Panasonic flashes? 

 

kind regards

 

Peter

 

 

[Photoworks]

1 hour ago, Pelu2010 said:

All my tests with HSS have failed. 

I tried to contact godox and Leica to get any feedback on the issue.

I hope this gets solved in one of the next firmware updates.

To me HSS is very important.

I don´t want to go back to ND Filters. 

Anyone has any experience with Panasonic flashes? 

 

kind regards

 

Peter

 

 

Did you miss the part that Godox flash or any other flash is not supported on Leica Camera.

If  HSS is important to you use the Leica SF-40 or SF-60.

 

[bsmith]

Actually, the SL2 flash syncs at 400th ss, try it

[Pelu2010]

You are right! But you need to activate HSS. Without HSS on the flash it's 320. 

Its nice to have a little more time. 

But it would be massive if we could haver the full spectrum of shutter speeds. 

Thanxs for the hack! 

 

Peter 

[mantoz]

I use a sl2-2 with godox xpro-n trigger, all in manual. have you also had problems in the sense that every now and then the leica freezes and the only way to go back to shooting is to remove the battery?

[Pelu2010]

Not until now. 

But I will keep an eye on it. 

I had this problem too, but I am not sure if I was shooting with strobes. 

[Pelu2010]

On 5/6/2021 at 8:23 AM, Pelu2010 said:

Hey , 

 

I am starting to use speed lights with my sl2s and I am wondering on how do I solve this problem. 

I need a fast time because the scene is bright, but without flash it is dark.

Now if I try to focus my manual lenses I can’t see the sharpness. 

If I flash the picture looks ok , but I need to make adjustments to the time. 

So to focus I need to go to 0,5 or 1 Second and the back down the exposure to 1/200 to make the shot. 

But I would not get any reaction of the model if I would shoot a person this way. 

 

Is there any way to solve this? 

I am shooting in manual mode with a Godox speed light and a remote attached to the camera. 

Thanks 

Peter 

Hey I found out what I did wrong. 

You need to set the camera to PAS, so that manual is out of the exposure preview. 

Then you can see the model and set any time and f-stop

After the flash hit the scene you get the feedback of the camera. 

So far this works for me. 

Nice would be if we could HSS with Godox products. 

thanxs 

Peter 

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