Shooting with SF-40 Flash, SL2 viewfinder exposure preview is all over the place

[FrankX]

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Cannot believe that the EVF flickering is the normal SL2 behavior with flash! Never heard it before.

Please comment if you do have the same problem (“erratic exposure view in EVF”) as pgh. 

Is there anyone without this problem using a Leica SF60 or SF40 flash?

Looking forward to reading your comments! 

[pgh]

11 hours ago, beewee said:

I’m not here to defend Leica. In fact, I too am critical in other aspects. The point I’m making is that Leica cameras are not do-everything cameras. Far from it. Leica cameras really suck at a lot of things.

Need super teles? Find a different brand.

Need fast AF? Find a different brand.

Need professional support with loaner equipment and fast turn around on repairs? Find a different brand.

Need high shooting speed with AF? Find a different brand.

Need gimbal support? Find a different brand.

Need flash? Seems like you have your answer.

I shoot Leica because of the simplicity and when I bought into the M and SL systems, I know that they’re not going to suit every single form of photography but I also know that it doesn’t limit me in the way I shoot so I’m fine with the limitation.

Yes, I shoot because of the simplicity also - and with flash I use it simply, it's always worked with the M series just fine for my purposes. Leica do work with flash well (and always have) with particular styles of use. What I am asking for is the camera to act simply - this is, again, a very basic thing. This is not an advanced feature. In fact it is so basic I am sure Leica intends it to work the way I am wanting it to, it just isn't actually doing that, so I am trying to see if anyone has solutions or ideas - not sidebar observations about how I am expecting too much. This is like telling someone they're expecting too much if they want a precisely in focus photo with the rangefinder shooting at 5.6 on a 35mm lens....not a super high bar here to meet. 

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[FMB]

I reckon that after having read what have been said till now, with big difficulty because my week capacity to understand English, I'm for the moment  in a growing mess. First of all,  we must consider that the settings to use the flash on M10 and on SL2, in short,  only differ basically  in the capacity that has SL2 of use it in mode Auto ISO. I think this is not the key of your problem.

The second matter to clarify is, and you must accept without any condition, that you must use a flash adopted by Leica software for its cameras. No more alternatives, i40 Nissin, Godox, etc. can’t be used.

The third way to follow is accept that, if you want to mix the light  of  your flash with the ambient light, you should as first step calculate and set  the exposure to the level you like for this ambient, (Aperture, ISO and any  speed slow or fast  not overpassing the one needed for synchronizing the flash). And...

Next step, subordinated to the first, is  to add the light of your  flash to the direction and with the intensity  you want to give at your image with same aperture and ISO of the first step and the power you chouse to fill, re-fill zones or shadows or overpass them.

 -  The shutter speed selected for the ambient light doesn’t change the flash exposure but freezes or not the moving elements in scene.

- If you want with your SL2 a neutral behavior vs. the one of the M10 camera you must design a customer profile putting your SL2 before it almost  in  “ex fabric” settings to avoid a lot of options able to modify it. The SL2 is a complex camera that uses autofocus lenses and Speed Mode and  it is very easy in a normal  managing of  it to introduce alternatives orders that should have been cancelled before entering in a very simple procedure like M10 one. It is not easy to drive “a formula one” at low speed.

 Sorry, very sorry  for have been long in my comments….

Francisco

[lx1713]

On 5/6/2022 at 9:08 AM, pgh said:

Does anyone shoot with flash much on their SL2? I'm using mine in TTL and the exposure preview through the viewfinder is all over the place - like I get a preview that reads as if I'm +2 EV but I'm shooting in manual mode with the flash and the exposure I am set at (for an underexposed background) is about -1 EV for the scene. I'm new to trying this with this camera but struggling to make sense of how it behaves. This could be a simple user error issue but I don't know where to go from here. I also find it strange when the flash is on TTL in A or P mode it doesn't default to the shutter sync speed (or 1/60) as other cameras systems tend to do. 

Hi PGH, hopefully I can help out. The following applies to me and my way of shooting with flash. I cover events so flash is important even when pure Red Greens and Blues impact the shot.

This is what I set my camera to give me.

Once I frame the subject, focused, snapped the shot. A preview image of how the flash performed appears in the EVF. I will then adjust my exposure on the flash and go for shots 2,3,4 following the action adjusting the flash exposure as I track.

This are some of the more camera important settings I use.

RAW, Auto Review - Shutter pressed, Exposure is set to match the ambient exposure (ISO 800 - 12800), Colour temperature (2800K - 5500K), aperture 4.0 - 5.6, shutter speed 1/125 - 1/160, MF with joystick set to AF-S, Spot or field AF mode.

For the flash, I will use a canon flash 600EX II-RT because it doesn't override my color temperature in my files and the dial for manual adjustment is robust. it allows me to work quickly and the recharge time is 2-3 times that of a Leica flash. I use a simple but robust bounce card that DEMB sells. The flash is bounced off the card and ceiling/wall depending on situation. I will tape color filters over the flashead to match the main ambient lights.

My aim is to minimise my post processing as I shoot too much.

Basically the logic is this:

Our faces look best in 5500 - 6500K, that's also the flash output color. Most locations will be 2500K to 7000K. Or worse. So I will try to match to the colour temperature in general. Day shots are 5500k and night shots are 2800k - 3600k.

Most movements can be captured in the 1/125 - 1/160 range so I stay here. Its also a simple range to stay in but I will hit 1/8 whenever the mood requires it.

The ambient exposure will determine your basic or global exposure. That keeps things simple because a small flash head generally makes things look ugly, the job of your flash is to reduce ugly shadows, bring colour temperatures back to what makes us look human and give a tiny bit of catch light to your eyes. You may find that German designed lenses does give a bit of advantage here for small direct flashes but keep it to low ISOs.

An aperture range of 4.0 to 6.7 is short and simple to keep track. Enough depth of field for most situations even at 300mm. 

ISO will be whatever the venue gives you. The lower the light level the uglier will be the  facial color. The job of the flash is to make things beautiful for the subject. So, as far as possible bounce directionally (ceiling or wall) unless your subjects are really young.

If you have a dim venue giving you ISO 12800. Bouncing of a 30m ceiling can be the solution with a fill card for your subjects in front. The sensor is pretty good if you drop in enough 5500K light. Not too much or it becomes distasteful.

The leica lenses are marvelous. I have done 300 people group at f2.0 at 50m range in semi darkness. So you can do it with a Q2.

You have an SF40. It’s the same principles but slower in action and no bounce. Take your time to dial in the flash exposure. The combination of sensor and lens and your shutter speed will give you a natural blend. It is however quite painful way of working to me.

 

These are very general principles I use but break all the time : ) but if you can't coax your flash to do beautiful don't use it because the subject is waiting.

 

 

Edited May 18, 2022 by lx1713

[pgh]

57 minutes ago, lx1713 said:

Hi PGH, hopefully I can help out. The following applies to me and my way of shooting with flash. I cover events so flash is important even when pure Red Greens and Blues impact the shot.

This is what I set my camera to give me.

Once I frame the subject, focused, snapped the shot. A preview image of how the flash performed appears in the EVF. I will then adjust my exposure on the flash and go for shots 2,3,4 following the action adjusting the flash exposure as I track.

This are some of the more camera important settings I use.

RAW, Auto Review - Shutter pressed, Exposure is set to match the ambient exposure (ISO 800 - 12800), Colour temperature (2800K - 5500K), aperture 4.0 - 5.6, shutter speed 1/125 - 1/160, MF with joystick set to AF-S, Spot or field AF mode.

For the flash, I will use a canon flash 600EX II-RT because it doesn't override my color temperature in my files and the dial for manual adjustment is robust. it allows me to work quickly and the recharge time is 2-3 times that of a Leica flash. I use a simple but robust bounce card that DEMB sells. The flash is bounced off the card and ceiling/wall depending on situation. I will tape color filters over the flashead to match the main ambient lights.

My aim is to minimise my post processing as I shoot too much.

Basically the logic is this:

Our faces look best in 5500 - 6500K, that's also the flash output color. Most locations will be 2500K to 7000K. Or worse. So I will try to match to the colour temperature in general. Day shots are 5500k and night shots are 2800k - 3600k.

Most movements can be captured in the 1/125 - 1/160 range so I stay here. Its also a simple range to stay in but I will hit 1/8 whenever the mood requires it.

The ambient exposure will determine your basic or global exposure. That keeps things simple because a small flash head generally makes things look ugly, the job of your flash is to reduce ugly shadows, bring colour temperatures back to what makes us look human and give a tiny bit of catch light to your eyes. You may find that German designed lenses does give a bit of advantage here for small direct flashes but keep it to low ISOs.

An aperture range of 4.0 to 6.7 is short and simple to keep track. Enough depth of field for most situations even at 300mm. 

ISO will be whatever the venue gives you. The lower the light level the uglier will be the  facial color. The job of the flash is to make things beautiful for the subject. So, as far as possible bounce directionally (ceiling or wall) unless your subjects are really young.

If you have a dim venue giving you ISO 12800. Bouncing of a 30m ceiling can be the solution with a fill card for your subjects in front. The sensor is pretty good if you drop in enough 5500K light. Not too much or it becomes distasteful.

The leica lenses are marvelous. I have done 300 people group at f2.0 at 50m range in semi darkness. So you can do it with a Q2.

You have an SF40. It’s the same principles but slower in action and no bounce. Take your time to dial in the flash exposure. The combination of sensor and lens and your shutter speed will give you a natural blend. It is however quite painful way of working to me.

 

These are very general principles I use but break all the time : ) but if you can't coax your flash to do beautiful don't use it because the subject is waiting.

 

 

Thanks for your time in describing your method.

However, I must not be communicating clearly as my issue is not my method with the flash - it's just how the camera exposure preview is behaving as I shoot with it.

The pictures themselves are fine and are as predicted for my given settings, but as I view the scene displaying a change in exposure (while I do not actually change exposure) with my flash mounted it confuses me. While my method differs from yours I do indeed have a particular way of using flash regardless of camera - and the erratic LCD display in my SL2 is just making the process rougher than it should be. 

[Luke_Miller]

2 hours ago, pgh said:

However, I must not be communicating clearly as my issue is not my method with the flash - it's just how the camera exposure preview is behaving as I shoot with it.

Possibly what you are experiencing is that exposure preview is disabled when the flash is detected on the SL2.  This is a change from the SL, where I have to manually disable it otherwise it reacts to the light from the flash and the EVF goes black. So what you are seeing in your EVF when the flash is active is an image that is independent of your settings. 

[lx1713]

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12 hours ago, pgh said:

Thanks for your time in describing your method.

However, I must not be communicating clearly as my issue is not my method with the flash - it's just how the camera exposure preview is behaving as I shoot with it.

The pictures themselves are fine and are as predicted for my given settings, but as I view the scene displaying a change in exposure (while I do not actually change exposure) with my flash mounted it confuses me. While my method differs from yours I do indeed have a particular way of using flash regardless of camera - and the erratic LCD display in my SL2 is just making the process rougher than it should be. 

Apologies, my intention was to lay out steps allow you to troubleshoot against a reliable workflow. Your problem might be somewhere in one of the steps I mentioned. It was to prevent guesswork on my part.

I sympathise with you regarding that erratic LCD behaviour. I didn't realise the SL2 has a flash exposure preview. I expose a shot to see the exposure before I change my settings. The LCD display is consistently reliable with my Canon flash shooting in manual mode. My EVF auto reviewed image is not very accurate at times compared with the LCD Playback image.

Although I still have 2 Leica flashes I don't use them much. 

[Moorestown]

Any reason why my SF40 flash ionly occasionally works in TTL with my SL2? It works perfectly when I pair it with the SL2-S or Q2.Settings on the SL2 and SL2-S are the same for the most part.

 

thx