Flash Metering | Sigma 50/50e guide

farthest right, bottom indicator is a dot to show that the camera has found something to focus on.

5 Flash

5.1 Built In Flash

The Elan II/IIe's Built In Flash is TTL only. Like all such built in ﬂash units, it is limited by its low power. It is also very close to the lens axis, and this frequently causes the dreaded red eye effect in your pictures, which is really just the ﬂash lighting up the back side of the subject's eyeball. Moving the ﬂash farther above your lens is the best solution. This will also cause any shadows on the wall behind your subject to fall below the image of your subject where it will either not be seen or not be as objectionable.

The built in ﬂash unit also houses a bright white light that acts as a red eye reduction lamp. With the ﬂash up and red eye enabled, press and hold the shutter button until the graph indicator at the bottom of the viewﬁnder (as well as the one in the LCD) centers itself. Then take the picture. What happens is the bright light shines in the eyes of the subject and causes the iris of the eye to contract, reducing the red reﬂection from the back of the eye. Most people ﬁnd this totally annoying, so now that you know how to do it, turn the thing off! There are better ways of dealing with red eye. Including red eye removal pens for your prints.

When using some larger lenses the built in ﬂash may be partially blocked by the lens barrel. This will cause a rounded shadow at the bottom of the picture. This is most pronounced at wide zoom settings and close distances. The cure is to use an external ﬂash since it is mounted higher above the lens.

5.2 Flash Metering

The Elan II/IIe is capable of Through The Lens (TTL) and Advanced TTL (A-TTL) ﬂash metering with external Canon E and EZ series Speedlites. It is also capable of Evaluative TTL (E-TTL) ﬂash metering with external Canon EX series Speedlites. For several reasons, E-TTL is generally the preferred metering method.

With TTL and A-TTL, the camera's built-in ﬂash meter senses the light Through The Lens (TTL) and reﬂected Off The Film (OTF). When enough light has reached the ﬁlm the camera signals the ﬂash to stop it's ﬂash pulse. This all takes place in less than 1/1000 second. On the Elan II/IIe this exposure is metered by a four area, three zone ﬂash meter and metering is biased toward the general area of whatever autofocus point is active at the time.

With E-TTLmode, the ﬂash exposure control is determined before the shutter opens by means of a pre-ﬂash that is metered by the same meter as the camera's regular, ambient light, evaluative meter. This pre-ﬂash occurs about 1/20 second before the main ﬂash and you can usually see it in the viewﬁnder just before it blacks out for the exposure. This system compares the ambient light reading with the ﬂash reading and adjusts both the ambient exposure and ﬂash exposure to, hopefully, provide the optimal