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Manual flash with 580EX II Anonymous
I was trying manual flash the other day and that mode kind of befuddled me since I've always used the E-TTL II mode which is pretty much fully automatic.

Anyway, what I normally do is set my camera to manual with say 1/50 and f/4 and I'd use flash exposure compensation in E-TTL II to my liking. Usually, I'm at + 2/3 or so but I sometimes have to dial negative compensation.

So at 1/50 and f/4 with + 2/3 of FEC, my picture looked perfectly exposed. Then I felt adventurous and put it in M, manual mode and you have to set the power in fraction increments: 1/128 being the weakest and 1/1 the maximum. There are also some in-between increments marked with +0.3 or -0.7 but I have no idea what they do.

Anyway, I set it at 1/16 at first since I heard how OVER 9000 strong 1/1 can be, fired away and the picture was pretty much dark. Keep in mind I'm still at 1/50 and f/4, nothing was changed except my flash was manually set to 1/16 power.

I'm like o_O the hell? So I put it at 1/4, it's super underexposed, then I figure, okay maybe + 2/3 of FEC means it's full power, I put in 1/1 and fire a shot. Same thing, it's underexposed.

What gives? I honestly have no idea how to use the flash other than in E-TTL and applying FEC changes. There doesn't seem to be other settings in manual mode other than picking the power output, what kind of magical shenanigans is the flash pulling to get a perfectly exposed picture in E-TTL?

Is there a setting I'm missing? Can I set the flash duration maybe?

Thanks for reading all that. ;__;
>> Anonymous
try shooting with a shutter speed of 1/200 or 1/250
>> Anonymous
How would shooting at sync speed help me?

I'll be getting even less light than at 1/50.
>> Anonymous
just try it plox.
>> Anonymous
what is your distance from the object?
>> Anonymous
Distance is pretty much the answer to everything flash related. Flash power decreases by a stop every time you double the distance of your subject from the flash.
>> Anonymous
>>253942
>>253947

About 2 meters or so but distance has not changed between E-TTL and manual mode.

I stayed in the exact same spot using the same exposure settings, using the same angle of the flash (with ABBC). I just went from E-TTL at + 2/3 to M at 1/1.

E-TTL was exposed perfectly as you would expect but M at 1/1 (that is full power) was underexposed.

So I'm wondering what I'm doing wrong because there's no other setting I can change in M to make it as properly exposed as E-TTL does.
>> Anonymous
>>254189
I've never used one of these automatic flashes but don't they sometimes have automatic zoom? Maybe that needs to be adjusted.
>> Einta !!MWv3ICYobCM
>>253947
Uh, no it doesn't. Inverse square law.
>> Anonymous
>>254259
You're right. It decreases by two stops.