> Now do it all with slide film! Emily This remains the real acid test - and explains (IMO) the differences of opinion on whether auto-everything flashes from Canon, Nikon etc etc really work as advertised - or indeed if it could ever be possible for them to work other than predictably. When using negative film I have no reservations about using the flash on auto: I usually dial in 1/2 stop under for the fill effect in daytime or just leave it on auto at night but heck, latitude of the recording medium takes care of the highlights. With slide film (which I suspect PJ's seldom toutched) the inherrent errors are exposed. Frankly, a flash can never "know" what parts of the frame the photographer wants lit and it what ratios. The assumption that it is the "selected focussing point" is a guess but not always valid. The metering itself is hardly "spot" so for much stuff in nature phtography it's weighting in a hell of a lot of background anyway. An "area flash" on manual of course always gives the coverage you expect, whether it is a black cat in a coal mine or a swan in a snowstorm .... ;o) For a practical question: real work photographing people though, using a modern flash (preferably bounced from a white ceiling) on auto and a high-latitude recording medium will work as long as 1) all parts of the scene are about the same distance (eg group of people at a press-conference desk) 2) the subject really is at the selected focus point and occupies a fairly large part of the frame. As Karl indicated: for studio set ups manual flash is actually trivially easy, use a flash meter / rely on the guide number and you will have near perfect results. > And do it all manually with remotely fired strobes, too. Just for > the mental practice! Only for staged set-ups. No good on the fly ... Bob
