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A100 + Kit Lens = bad flash timing & poor exposure

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btdbozo

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Hi All,

My dad has an A100 with a kit lens. When he uses the on-board flash it doesn't fire in sync with the photo being taken leading to dark pictures with no benefit from the flash. It is firing, but not at the appropriate time. He tried switching lenses and got perfectly decent well exposed photos with the flash all other settings remaining constant. This leads us to believe there's a problem with the lens. Any thoughts beyond that?

--
Thanks,
B
 
Looks to me like you nailed the problem , but it just might be a lens hood problem , or something in front of the flash when using the lens with the problem .

If not this is a weird one to me maybe the camera must wait for the lens to stop down to the correct aperture . This might be doing it .
 
btdbozo said:
My dad has an A100 with a kit lens. When he uses the on-board flash
it doesn't fire in sync with the photo being taken leading to dark
pictures with no benefit from the flash. It is firing, but not at
the appropriate time.
Click to expand...
What makes you say this? Do you know it is out of sync, or is it conjecture based on the dark images?
btdbozo said:
He tried switching lenses and got perfectly
decent well exposed photos with the flash all other settings
remaining constant. This leads us to believe there's a problem with
the lens. Any thoughts beyond that?
Click to expand...
What lens did he switch to? My 'stab-in-the-dark' guess was that he went from a D lens to a non-D lens which switched the camera from ADI to TTL mode. Try setting the camera to just use TTL with the kit lens.

--
Tom
 
Are you sure you're not using apertures like f11/f16?
Please post an example with exif intact.
 
I'm still working on getting a file and exif, but he's using the Sony DT 3.5 - 5.6 / 18 - 70 0.38m / 1.3ft Macro 55mm lens. I doubt the auto settings he's using would set him up for an aperture of 16 or something like that, but I'll double check that too.
--
Thanks,
B
 
Check the TTL or ADI settings, I bet 50$ on it that this is the problem. I purchased an old Sigma lens for my sisters A200 and we had the same issue. Just different flash settings made all the difference.

Best Regards,
RAlf

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I agree ..be sure to go into the setting to determin ttl or adi..
ADI on a non ADI lens is murder.
--
D.C. Kensinger
 
dcxk said:
I agree ..be sure to go into the setting to determin ttl or adi..
ADI on a non ADI lens is murder.
--
D.C. Kensinger
Click to expand...
TTL is through-the-lens metering. ADI adds distance information from the certain lenses to help avoid improper flash metering with bright or dark subjects.

That said, your camera will not try to use ADI on a non-ADI lens. I leave mine on ADI 100% of the time, and my non-ADI lenses work just fine.

It's possible that your ADI lens is feeding bum distance info to the camera, but that's unlikely...and even then, I find it hard to believe it would result in much worse images than with TTL-only. ADI is not "open-loop"...there is still TTL feedback.

Greg
 
"That said, your camera will not try to use ADI on a non-ADI lens. I leave mine on ADI 100% of the time, and my non-ADI lenses work just fine."

the a100 will try to use adi on non adi lenses you have to set it to ttl for non adi lenses
--
D.C. Kensinger
 
dcxk said:
"That said, your camera will not try to use ADI on a non-ADI lens. I
leave mine on ADI 100% of the time, and my non-ADI lenses work just
fine."

the a100 will try to use adi on non adi lenses you have to set it to
ttl for non adi lenses
--
D.C. Kensinger
Click to expand...
Says whom? It doesn't explicitly say that in the manual. It only says to turn it off if shooting with a diffuser, filter, or other device which will alter the flash output.

The camera is smart enough to turn off ADI when in bounce mode. I'm pretty sure it's smart enough to turn off ADI when not equipped with an ADI lens.

At least my 5D, 7D and A700 are. If they screwed up on the A100, then that's a bummer. Just not very likely.

Greg
 
oops.. disregard
 
Gregory King said:
dcxk said:
the a100 will try to use adi on non adi lenses you have to set it to
ttl for non adi lenses
Click to expand...
Says whom? It doesn't explicitly say that in the manual. It only
says to turn it off if shooting with a diffuser, filter, or other
device which will alter the flash output.

The camera is smart enough to turn off ADI when in bounce mode. I'm
pretty sure it's smart enough to turn off ADI when not equipped with
an ADI lens.
Click to expand...
I could be wrong but I think it tries to do ADI with non ADI lenses. I understand that non-ADI lenses still send distance information to the camera, but not as accurately as ADI lenses. I do not have my camera with me to test, but I seem to recall testing it with a 50mm f/1.7 (non ADI) lens in the past. When set to full manual settings, the same shot from a tripod of a blank wall would have more flash in when focused to infinity than when focused to mid distance, and in turn more when focused to mid distance than with close up focus.

--
Tom
 
Tom Harvey said:
Gregory King said:
dcxk said:
the a100 will try to use adi on non adi lenses you have to set it to
ttl for non adi lenses
Click to expand...
Says whom? It doesn't explicitly say that in the manual. It only
says to turn it off if shooting with a diffuser, filter, or other
device which will alter the flash output.

The camera is smart enough to turn off ADI when in bounce mode. I'm
pretty sure it's smart enough to turn off ADI when not equipped with
an ADI lens.
Click to expand...
I could be wrong but I think it tries to do ADI with non ADI lenses.
I understand that non-ADI lenses still send distance information to
the camera, but not as accurately as ADI lenses. I do not have my
camera with me to test, but I seem to recall testing it with a 50mm
f/1.7 (non ADI) lens in the past. When set to full manual settings,
the same shot from a tripod of a blank wall would have more flash in
when focused to infinity than when focused to mid distance, and in
turn more when focused to mid distance than with close up focus.
Click to expand...
With the A100? Or another model?

In any case, whatever is does (or doesn't do) on my cameras...I've never had to take it off ADI. But then, I only shoot bounce indoors and direct fill outdoors. Since ADI would only be working when shooting as fill flash anyways, the variations wouldn't be that noticeable.

Greg
 
Gregory King said:
Tom Harvey said:
I could be wrong but I think it tries to do ADI with non ADI lenses.
I understand that non-ADI lenses still send distance information to
the camera, but not as accurately as ADI lenses. I do not have my
camera with me to test, but I seem to recall testing it with a 50mm
f/1.7 (non ADI) lens in the past. When set to full manual settings,
the same shot from a tripod of a blank wall would have more flash in
when focused to infinity than when focused to mid distance, and in
turn more when focused to mid distance than with close up focus.
Click to expand...
With the A100? Or another model?
Click to expand...
Yep, A100.

--
Tom
 
I remember reading about the adi/ttl issue in the manual. It's been so long though, and since those were new concepts to a beginner, I cannot remember what I did about it. I just know that I have been using the kit short lens only and have had great luck with the on board flash. Sometimes I need to adjust it's settings in camera but still I'm very satisfied with the final results. Cheers, ChaCha
 
That fixed it! Thanks all. Switching it to TTL did the trick. Saved us an hour+ drive to the camera store, and untold amounts of requisite money it takes to get out of there :-)

--
Thanks,
B
 
Sounds like your kit lens is sending bum ADI data (bad sensor?). Do you have any other ADI lenses to try?

Do your other lenses work any different with ADI off?

Greg
 
I've had some poor results with an 8-contact lens and ADI flash, but TTL works really well, so I've decided to just stick with that for my A100. Of course, I like to
bounce when I can, so I might as well use TTL all the time...

--
Gary W.
 
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