Canon D30 Flash Fill ??

[Justin Varuzzo]

Hello everyone. I'm a newbie, and I'm sure this is a stupid obvious question, but it has stumped me.

I recently purchased a used Canon D30 Body, and bought a Canon 28-90mm lens. I've never gotten into photography before and am just playing with the camera at this point.

Is there anyway in fully-automatic mode, to force the flash to pop-up?? In a lot of my outdoor pictures the subject comes out black. On my cheap Sony Cybershot there is simply a flash button that makes the flash fire and makes the pictures come out.

My Canon D30 has this same lightening-bolt flash icon on a button on the little ring for the lens, but pushing it does nothing in auto mode. In fact none of the buttons seem to do anything in auto-mode. As much as I'd love to be able to shoot all my pictures well in manual mode, at this time I don't have enough knowledge, and would at least like to take good pictures.

Does anyone know how to force flash in auto-mode on the D30 ?

One other thing that strikes me as odd is in auto mode my shutter speeds are always very low, even metering the sun yields 500th of a second, where my old Pentax K1000 would meter 1/2000th ?? Is this normal ? (note: the pictures DO come out very nice).

Thanks, any help would be greatly appreciated.
-Justin

 

[Richard Smith41318]

I recently purchased a used Canon D30 Body, and bought a Canon
28-90mm lens. I've never gotten into photography before and am just
playing with the camera at this point.

Have fun playing, the D30 is great for that.

Is there anyway in fully-automatic mode, to force the flash to
pop-up?? In a lot of my outdoor pictures the subject comes out
black. On my cheap Sony Cybershot there is simply a flash button
that makes the flash fire and makes the pictures come out.

No. You have to work in "P" mode if you want that level of control.

My Canon D30 has this same lightening-bolt flash icon on a button
on the little ring for the lens, but pushing it does nothing in
auto mode. In fact none of the buttons seem to do anything in
auto-mode. As much as I'd love to be able to shoot all my pictures
well in manual mode, at this time I don't have enough knowledge,
and would at least like to take good pictures.

You should be working in "P" mode if your intention is to learn. No
one works in "M" mode unless they have a special reason to do so (or
they grew up on cameras where manual was all you had).

One other thing that strikes me as odd is in auto mode my shutter
speeds are always very low, even metering the sun yields 500th of a
second, where my old Pentax K1000 would meter 1/2000th ?? Is this
normal ? (note: the pictures DO come out very nice).

So, what ISO setting are you using? If you are on ISO 100 you should
be getting very brief exposures.

 

[Richard Smith41318]

So, what ISO setting are you using? If you are on ISO 100 you should
be getting very brief exposures.

Sorry that's wasn't what I meant to say. You will get shorter
exposures as you increase your ISO. The 28-90 has an f-stop range of
f/4 to f/5.6 which is considered "slow" therefore the camera will use
longer exposures to compensate. There's nothing unexpected about
this.

Hope this helps.

 

[critter1]

I have a D60 instead of a D30, but I think they are similar.
As Richard says, you should be in P mode.

P mode is almost like fully automatic mode, but here you can force the flash, and do a few other manual adjustments (stretch the Program).

In automatic mode, virtually all (or all?) of the user settings do not work. This includes popping the flash. The camera decides "automatically". However, you should not have gotten pictures that were "black". That concerns me.

Personally, I use M mode a reasonable percentage of the time, but then I'm old (56) like Richard suggests.

The preset modes are meant for "special quickie" situations. These provide presets for various settings given the scenario.

P, Av, Tv and M give more direct control in various manners.

Study and play with all of the settings. They may all have a purpose for you.

 

[Justin Varuzzo]

Thanks everyone for your help!

I have a D60 instead of a D30, but I think they are similar.
As Richard says, you should be in P mode.

I read somewheres the D30 and D60 are identical, except the D60 is 6 megapixel instead of 3. Don't know how accurate that is though !?

P mode is almost like fully automatic mode, but here you can force
the flash, and do a few other manual adjustments (stretch the
Program).

In automatic mode, virtually all (or all?) of the user settings do
not work. This includes popping the flash. The camera decides
"automatically". However, you should not have gotten pictures that
were "black". That concerns me.

Pictures didn't come out black, faces were very dark when the sun was behind them as expected. Sorry for the confusion.

Personally, I use M mode a reasonable percentage of the time, but
then I'm old (56) like Richard suggests.

The preset modes are meant for "special quickie" situations. These
provide presets for various settings given the scenario.

P, Av, Tv and M give more direct control in various manners.

Study and play with all of the settings. They may all have a
purpose for you.

Will do! Hopefully some day I can offer someone help on the topic !

Thanks agian!

 

[Jason Hutchinson]

P mode is basically the same as AUTO except the flash is under your control. Just hit the flash button while in P mode and the camera will do the rest.

The D60 and D30 are very much the same functionally, but there are a few feature and performance differences.

Jason

I have a D60 instead of a D30, but I think they are similar.
As Richard says, you should be in P mode.

I read somewheres the D30 and D60 are identical, except the D60 is
6 megapixel instead of 3. Don't know how accurate that is though !?

P mode is almost like fully automatic mode, but here you can force
the flash, and do a few other manual adjustments (stretch the
Program).

In automatic mode, virtually all (or all?) of the user settings do
not work. This includes popping the flash. The camera decides
"automatically". However, you should not have gotten pictures that
were "black". That concerns me.

Pictures didn't come out black, faces were very dark when the sun
was behind them as expected. Sorry for the confusion.

Personally, I use M mode a reasonable percentage of the time, but
then I'm old (56) like Richard suggests.

The preset modes are meant for "special quickie" situations. These
provide presets for various settings given the scenario.

P, Av, Tv and M give more direct control in various manners.

Study and play with all of the settings. They may all have a
purpose for you.

Will do! Hopefully some day I can offer someone help on the topic !

Thanks agian!

 

[Tisya]

Taken with D30, P mode, No Flash, 85 1.8m, Outside
Enjoy your D30!

http://xzyquel.instantlogic.com/images//Photos/ {DD7EDF14-EB6D-47AA-BFD7-55114FA7ADBC} {C071391D-DD5A-4064-AD17-E9C13853CE7E}lg.jpg

http://xzyquel.instantlogic.com/images//Photos/ {DD7EDF14-EB6D-47AA-BFD7-55114FA7ADBC} {A9767281-BCD4-425A-BD8B-95E7B578392E}lg.jpg

 

[ChesterCreek Design]

Setting the camera in the fully automatic mode (the green square on the program dial on the left of the camera), should pop the flash up when needed.

Hello everyone. I'm a newbie, and I'm sure this is a stupid obvious
question, but it has stumped me.

I recently purchased a used Canon D30 Body, and bought a Canon
28-90mm lens. I've never gotten into photography before and am just
playing with the camera at this point.

Is there anyway in fully-automatic mode, to force the flash to
pop-up?? In a lot of my outdoor pictures the subject comes out
black. On my cheap Sony Cybershot there is simply a flash button
that makes the flash fire and makes the pictures come out.

My Canon D30 has this same lightening-bolt flash icon on a button
on the little ring for the lens, but pushing it does nothing in
auto mode. In fact none of the buttons seem to do anything in
auto-mode. As much as I'd love to be able to shoot all my pictures
well in manual mode, at this time I don't have enough knowledge,
and would at least like to take good pictures.

Does anyone know how to force flash in auto-mode on the D30 ?

One other thing that strikes me as odd is in auto mode my shutter
speeds are always very low, even metering the sun yields 500th of a
second, where my old Pentax K1000 would meter 1/2000th ?? Is this
normal ? (note: the pictures DO come out very nice).

Thanks, any help would be greatly appreciated.
-Justin

 

[critter1]

But Tim, that's not "fill flash".

Hello everyone. I'm a newbie, and I'm sure this is a stupid obvious
question, but it has stumped me.

I recently purchased a used Canon D30 Body, and bought a Canon
28-90mm lens. I've never gotten into photography before and am just
playing with the camera at this point.

Is there anyway in fully-automatic mode, to force the flash to
pop-up?? In a lot of my outdoor pictures the subject comes out
black. On my cheap Sony Cybershot there is simply a flash button
that makes the flash fire and makes the pictures come out.

My Canon D30 has this same lightening-bolt flash icon on a button
on the little ring for the lens, but pushing it does nothing in
auto mode. In fact none of the buttons seem to do anything in
auto-mode. As much as I'd love to be able to shoot all my pictures
well in manual mode, at this time I don't have enough knowledge,
and would at least like to take good pictures.

Does anyone know how to force flash in auto-mode on the D30 ?

One other thing that strikes me as odd is in auto mode my shutter
speeds are always very low, even metering the sun yields 500th of a
second, where my old Pentax K1000 would meter 1/2000th ?? Is this
normal ? (note: the pictures DO come out very nice).

Thanks, any help would be greatly appreciated.
-Justin