TRY THIS TRICK w/F10 F11 F20 F30

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THIS Trick seems to respond the best with my F10 & F11. Maybe because they have the most powerful flashes of the Fseries.

Place Camera in M mode.

Turn on Slow Sync Flash.

Set exposure compensation to -1 2/3 to -2. (Thats right negative)

Set ISO to 200 or 400(works better @400.)

Set metering to normal ( matrix )
or speed things up a little with Spot metering.

What this does, is trick the camera into speeding up the slow shutterspeed from the standard 1/15 to between 1/30 to 1/80 sometimes higher depending on ISO and lighting.

Why do this you ask. Well it gives you much better exposures. Lights up the backround more and doesn't blow out faces.

This is a very nice alternative to raising ISO's where we know results will suffer. or to using no flash at all.

Try it ! i bought the F10 in 2005 when it 1st came out. I figured this trick out about 6 months ago.

Thought I would share it.

The reason this is so cool to me is. The F10 has tremendous exposure problems indoors. Its auto setting gives you 800 all the time kills detail adds noise and is too bright !

Its easily fooled into underexposing by shooting with a white wall as a backround.

Or if people are wearing white shirts. Forget it. Your pics will be dark no matter what the ISO.
If you want your shots to look as natural as possible. This is the way to go.

The photo processing from the F10/11 to me are the best. Not too much sharpening !
That, Along with the excellent ISO 200 & 400 capabilities & powerful flash
It is still my favorite of the bunch.
I am not a pro photo guy.

But I like to figure out how to get best pictures from a pocket cam. This took me along time to figure out. & i feel it makes a huge difference in the picture quality.

You will enjoy this info. BTW ihave used this trick on my f20 & a900 as well . It seems to be the way Fuji programs there Cams.
Never worked with my Canons though

I could not get it to work with my F11. I shot an image at 400 ISO, then at 200 ISO with -2ev ... the differences were minor. When I shot an image at 800ISO, the background was much more open, as expected.

I was about 6 feet from a backlit subject with the background lit by a single compact fluorescent bulb ...

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http://letkeman.net/Photos
http://kimletkeman.blogspot.com

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Did you have the slow sync on ?

yes, this is an old trick back in the days of the film cameras when I had my SLR's. Instead of the ev button, you would adjust the aperature to "compensate". The same goes for when you have bright sunny objects, like taking a picture of a sunset. You would open up the aperature when taking a sunset, and close it down when taking night shots. The camera's sensor over compensates and opens up the aperature too much in dark scenes, and closes up when pointing at the sun.

I used those settings with my s6500fd, and it works for me on my s100fs, and not only slow syncro but normal flash. Great for indoor shots.

My settings tip for the series: ISO 400, -2/3 flash (if you can set that in the menu), forced flash, 1/15-1/20 shutter speed. With kids you would have less keepers (they move around too fast), but otherwise you get a nice, balanced images.

kingd73 said:

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Did you have the slow sync on ?

Click to expand...

Of course ... that's what you specified.

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http://letkeman.net/Photos
http://kimletkeman.blogspot.com

Yes this is an old trick that works well. Just don't use it on fast moving people or you'll get cool ghosting effect instead. I have always used this technique on cameras where it works. Though Fuji's iFlash works good too when it works.

Here's a food shot I made last month using that technique. EXIF is intact:



...

I'll give it a try - thanks for sharing. I really, really try to avoid flash with my F10, maybe this will change that.

RoysLaw said:

Yes this is an old trick that works well. Just don't use it on fast
moving people or you'll get cool ghosting effect instead. I have
always used this technique on cameras where it works. Though Fuji's
iFlash works good too when it works.

Here's a food shot I made last month using that technique. EXIF is
intact:

Click to expand...

Sorry ... I don;t quite understand how this trick works. It certainly does nothing for me. And seeing this shot, the flash does not even manage to cover this small distance evenly.

So how does the trick work? And what does it change?

--
http://letkeman.net/Photos
http://kimletkeman.blogspot.com

Can you (or somebody else who knows this trick) post any comparision shots? Hard to imaging the difference without having something to compare.

I tried the steps OP posted with my F30, but it did not work. My camera keeps selecting 1/15 sec in the slow syncro persistently unless there's plenty of light already available in the environment. Can someone who succeeds repeat the steps again?

Thanks,
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Mtemel

Kim Letkeman said:

RoysLaw said:

Yes this is an old trick that works well. Just don't use it on fast
moving people or you'll get cool ghosting effect instead. I have
always used this technique on cameras where it works. Though Fuji's
iFlash works good too when it works.

Here's a food shot I made last month using that technique. EXIF is
intact:

Click to expand...

Sorry ... I don;t quite understand how this trick works. It certainly
does nothing for me. And seeing this shot, the flash does not even
manage to cover this small distance evenly.

So how does the trick work? And what does it change?

--
http://letkeman.net/Photos
http://kimletkeman.blogspot.com

Click to expand...

Well this trick works by making the flash effect transparent on the capture making it look more of a flashless shot. Works exactly what iFlash is intended to do. As you know, iFlash works great (when it works) but doesn't give you control. So consider this technique as a manual iFlash.

I used the above (boring) shot to illustrate the "natural" effect and its exposure on a white surface. The distant objects are not illuminated as well because the table is actually blocking the light path. This was shot under overhead and very yellow incandescent lights typical of formal dining room. It works better for straight shots especially for portraits. I also use standard flash instead of slow sync especially when there is a lot of subject movement.

Note: The Fuji manual doesn't even mention iFlash and I haven't seen any official documentation that says when iFlash is active or in use but by observation I think it mainly works only on auto modes (auto flash, auto iso, etc) and on scene modes.

...

Hopefully somebody will but that shot I posted above is straight out of the cam and clearly shows the "natural" effect it has. Normally with regular flash, you'll see that white mantle blow out like crazy especially for a shot that close.

...

Waffelbcker said:

Can you (or somebody else who knows this trick) post any comparision
shots? Hard to imaging the difference without having something to
compare.

Click to expand...

If you look at the EXIF on that shot I posted you'll find that it is also at 1/15". That is typical under Slow Sync flash. Set the flash on regular (works too) if you want a capture that is brighter and more pop.

...

mtemel said:

I tried the steps OP posted with my F30, but it did not work. My
camera keeps selecting 1/15 sec in the slow syncro persistently
unless there's plenty of light already available in the environment.
Can someone who succeeds repeat the steps again?

Thanks,
--

Mtemel

Click to expand...

RoysLaw said:

Well this trick works by making the flash effect transparent on the
capture making it look more of a flashless shot. Works exactly what
iFlash is intended to do. As you know, iFlash works great (when it
works) but doesn't give you control. So consider this technique as a
manual iFlash.

Click to expand...

Hmmm ... as I said, in my tests there was no difference between a shot with 0ev and -2ev with the F10. And since the F10 does not have iFlash, I don't really see iFlash being relevant. (His whole point was to trick the older cams I thought.)

Anyway ... I don't find that image natural at all ... too much light fall off ... but that the price of shooting with compacts without real manual control.

RoysLaw said:

I used the above (boring) shot to illustrate the "natural" effect and
its exposure on a white surface. The distant objects are not
illuminated as well because the table is actually blocking the light
path. This was shot under overhead and very yellow incandescent
lights typical of formal dining room. It works better for straight
shots especially for portraits. I also use standard flash instead of
slow sync especially when there is a lot of subject movement.

Click to expand...

Well ... this is a general discussion of flash, which on a compact like any of these is really just a stop gap anyway. It works fine when the subject is far away from walls and such, and when the background is well enough lit. The newer balanced fill in iFlash works better when the subject is closer than the older slow sync of the F10 and F11 ...

But I don't see these issues as being relevant to the trick.

--
http://letkeman.net/Photos
http://kimletkeman.blogspot.com

Kim Letkeman said:

RoysLaw said:

Well this trick works by making the flash effect transparent on the
capture making it look more of a flashless shot. Works exactly what
iFlash is intended to do. As you know, iFlash works great (when it
works) but doesn't give you control. So consider this technique as a
manual iFlash.

Click to expand...

Hmmm ... as I said, in my tests there was no difference between a
shot with 0ev and -2ev with the F10. And since the F10 does not have
iFlash, I don't really see iFlash being relevant. (His whole point
was to trick the older cams I thought.)

Click to expand...

I understand what you're saying that you try to recreate what the OP did and you did not see any advantages. I can only speak for the F30 so I can't comment on what the OP claims.

Kim Letkeman said:

Anyway ... I don't find that image natural at all ... too much light
fall off ... but that the price of shooting with compacts without
real manual control.

Click to expand...

Well you'll be hard pressed to achieve natural looking lighting even if you shoot with an SLR with good flash. The only way you really can achieve that is to rig the place with the right lighting gear.

Anyway my point was that the shot looks like it was shot under natural light and not with flash blowout as typical with P&S.

Kim Letkeman said:

Kim Letkeman said:

I used the above (boring) shot to illustrate the "natural" effect and
its exposure on a white surface. The distant objects are not
illuminated as well because the table is actually blocking the light
path. This was shot under overhead and very yellow incandescent
lights typical of formal dining room. It works better for straight
shots especially for portraits. I also use standard flash instead of
slow sync especially when there is a lot of subject movement.

Click to expand...

Well ... this is a general discussion of flash, which on a compact
like any of these is really just a stop gap anyway. It works fine
when the subject is far away from walls and such, and when the
background is well enough lit. The newer balanced fill in iFlash
works better when the subject is closer than the older slow sync of
the F10 and F11 ...

But I don't see these issues as being relevant to the trick.

Click to expand...

I do see discrepancies on some of the details that the OP posted which I'm not going to get in to but yes the topic is about shooting with flash and getting good exposure instead of blown highlights. iFlash is best for this when it works and for those times it doesn't I use this technique to get what I want.

My use of the technique and the OP's are totally different. Slow Sync has a nasty side effect (halos and ghosting) when used in the wrong conditions so it is not advisable to use this all the time. The point of my post is to show the OP that his discovery is not new.

...

RoysLaw said:

Well you'll be hard pressed to achieve natural looking lighting even
if you shoot with an SLR with good flash. The only way you really
can achieve that is to rig the place with the right lighting gear.

Click to expand...

Agreed that that would be best. However, an appropriately bounced flash would work well also ...

RoysLaw said:

Anyway my point was that the shot looks like it was shot under
natural light and not with flash blowout as typical with P&S.

Click to expand...

That's iFlash at work ... Fuji built in better control of intensity and smarts in matrix meter mode ...

RoysLaw said:

I do see discrepancies on some of the details that the OP posted
which I'm not going to get in to but yes the topic is about shooting
with flash and getting good exposure instead of blown highlights.
iFlash is best for this when it works and for those times it doesn't
I use this technique to get what I want.

Click to expand...

iFlash was designed to do just that and many have posted excellent examples showing that it works.

RoysLaw said:

My use of the technique and the OP's are totally different. Slow
Sync has a nasty side effect (halos and ghosting) when used in the
wrong conditions so it is not advisable to use this all the time.
The point of my post is to show the OP that his discovery is not new.

Click to expand...

Which is one reason why I prefer compacts with Tv (S-prio) mode ...

--
http://letkeman.net/Photos
http://kimletkeman.blogspot.com

Kim Letkeman said:

RoysLaw said:

Anyway my point was that the shot looks like it was shot under
natural light and not with flash blowout as typical with P&S.

Click to expand...

That's iFlash at work ... Fuji built in better control of intensity
and smarts in matrix meter mode ...

Kim Letkeman said:

I do see discrepancies on some of the details that the OP posted
which I'm not going to get in to but yes the topic is about shooting
with flash and getting good exposure instead of blown highlights.
iFlash is best for this when it works and for those times it doesn't
I use this technique to get what I want.

Click to expand...

iFlash was designed to do just that and many have posted excellent
examples showing that it works.

Click to expand...

Well yes that makes sense. Maybe iFlash is still at play even when using this technique. Perhaps that's the reason why it picks 1/15" all the time instead of a faster speed as the OP observed.

,,,

RoysLaw said:

Well yes that makes sense. Maybe iFlash is still at play even when
using this technique. Perhaps that's the reason why it picks 1/15"
all the time instead of a faster speed as the OP observed.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I think iFlash really helps the Fujis be all round cameras ... and it's smart enough that I doubt you can trick it.

I've played a bit with the F10 and can see the "trick" sort of working when I point the cam directly at a bulb in high ISO mode ... then the shutter speed spikes. But this is a totally natural reaction to the combination of ISO and a fixed maximum aperture ... as light gets brighter, shutter must rise.

Using compensation to force faster shutter speeds is useful when you need to get shutter speed at the expense of under exposure, but the aperture ranges of these cams is so limited that the trick is almost impossible to demonstrate under typical conditions.

--
http://letkeman.net/Photos
http://kimletkeman.blogspot.com

must be a Fuji thing.

can you post some shots. i'm going to try when i get home, but if you have some already floating around...

cheers,

kingd73 said:

kingd73 wrote:
But I like to figure out how to get best pictures from a pocket cam.
This took me along time to figure out. & i feel it makes a huge
difference in the picture quality.
You will enjoy this info. BTW ihave used this trick on my f20 & a900
as well . It seems to be the way Fuji programs there Cams.
Never worked with my Canons though

Click to expand...

--
Long
( http://picasaweb.google.com/longhlam )
( http://www.flickr.com/photos/27657386@N00/ )