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| 1/1000 second, F 4.0, ISO 200 |
Taking A Break: I felt I deserved a break from manual focusing, and went in a totally different path I brought a Fuji X100S camera and a QFlash, just for fun. The Fuji's leaf shutter would allow me to use a wider variety of exposure times, but 1/1000 seems to be the minimum setting to avoid possible transmission delays when using radio flash triggers.
This particular stop sign has a makeshift blinder installed on the side to prevent drivers from a side street from misinterpreting its intended audience. I used the QFlash to help me maintain the dark sky while improving the color saturation in the sign. I held it as high overhead as I could in an effort to even the top to bottom exposure. It worked reasonably well, and the "hot spots" aren't too distracting.
In this shot, the early morning sunlight created a highlight on my subject's left. All Minions look the same to me. The radio trigger feature allowed me to position the flash high overhead, as you can see by the shadow cast by the goggles.
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| 1/1000 second, F 5.6, ISO 200 with flash |
In this test shot, I set the camera's exposure manually to darken the sky. I mounted the flash on the camera's hot shoe, set it to full power, and fired away. Before the flash could fully recycle, I made a second exposure to compare a "with flash" exposure with a "no flash" one. The camera to subject distance was about seven feet.
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| 1/1000 second, F 5.6, ISO 200 without flash |
When compared to the "no flash" version on the right, you can see that the little flash can really make a difference at close range. Based on this subjective, non-scientific evaluation, I estimate the outdoor guide number at full power to be about 40 at ISO 200. This is at odds with the factory Guide Number of 91, adjusted by a factor of 1.4 to accommodate the higher ISO of 200.
Guide Numbers Are Just Guides: If your wondering about the discrepancy, it's because factory guide numbers assume that the flash will be fired indoors, and that some of the light reflected from the walls and the ceiling will contribute to the total illumination on the subject. In the absence of reflectors, much more light is just lost, and the Guide Number will drop accordingly.
A leaf-shuttered camera and a small flash. Don't leave home without them.
