"Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode" . . . . ?

[KathyS]

Hi

A friend with a Sony camera had some pictures with the EXIF data showing: "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode"

Does anyone know exactly what that means? It seems to say that the camera was in "compulsory flash mode" but that the flash did not fire. Seems odd . . .

Thanks,

Kathy

 

[Yehuda Katz]

Hi

A friend with a Sony camera had some pictures with the EXIF data
showing: "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode"

Does anyone know exactly what that means? It seems to say that the
camera was in "compulsory flash mode" but that the flash did not
fire. Seems odd . . .

Thanks,

Kathy

 

[Mike Fitzgerald]

Hi Kathy,

I don't own a Sony camera so I'll have to take a guess at this pending a more authoritative response. But Sony terminology is notorious for being cumbersome and arcane, and so my guess is that "flash did not fire" might be more correctly expressed as "flash was not recognised". That at least gets around the apparent contradiction in terms.

What I think has happened (and I've seen this quite a bit in Sony EXIF data) is that forced flash may well have been used, but the subject range was such that the light returned from the metering pre-flash was too weak to give a meaningful exposure reading.

I'm sure you've witnessed the veritable star fields that routinely light up, courtesy of all the point-and-shoots, at vast sporting venues, etc., a hundred metres from the action ;-)

That will have to do for the moment, anyway...

Hi

A friend with a Sony camera had some pictures with the EXIF data
showing: "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode"

Does anyone know exactly what that means? It seems to say that the
camera was in "compulsory flash mode" but that the flash did not
fire. Seems odd . . .

Thanks,

Kathy

Cheers,

Mike
Melbourne

 

[LinasK]

The text stored in EXIF is very confusing but it does not indicate any fault at all. This just means that flash was not used because camera was in "flash off" mode.