What's the rule of thumb on manual flash settings?

[poker]

Before they had rear LCDs and before they had TTL....how did people know they weren't over or under exposing their shots while using flash with film??

I'd like to use my old 540EZ more often, but as some of you CLAN O'CANONs know, it works only in fully manual on DSLRs.

What I'm doing so far:

I set the camera and flash to fully manual.
I set the shutter to a familiar sync speed like1/60.
I set the flash power to 1/8 (I'm now guessing).
I shoot a FEW times and adjust the f-stop higher or lower until the historgram looks good.

I want to avoid "shooting a few times" just to get it right. I'm bothering people and I'm wasting battery life.

Is there an old school method/rule of thumb I can use to use this flash in manual efficiently?

Thanks....:thumbsup:

[Greg McCary]

The way I set my camera is to look at the chart on the flash. The flash calls for the camera to be set at f/16 at about 10 feet with 400 ISO.Because I bounce flash I set the f/stop to f/8 instead because you lose light with the bounce. I shot at 1/125 and use a zoom to get close to the subject. If you are careful and bounce the flash just right this works well. No red eye and no white faces from a close flash. Your subject will be more at ease around the camera if you keep your distance too. This works great for kids....

[another view]

If you want to get really old school about it, use the guide number - GN divided by aperture equals distance. That's one reason the Vivitar 283 was so popular, it's GN was 110. The math is easy in that case; f11 at 10' - and 10' is a very standard subject distance for wedding receptions, etc. With neg film, as long as you were close to 10' you'd be OK but digital doesn't have that latitude and the highlights can blow out easily. You could also use a wider aperture for more distance if needed. I wouldn't recommend that method for digital although theoretically it should work fine.

That flash, and probably yours as well have a non-TTL auto function in the flash. It senses subject distance and adjusts light output accordingly. There might be a "red" range and a "blue" range, etc and you'd use whichever range suits the exposure you want to use or distance you need. Your flash is probably like my older Nikon SB28 in that you don't have to worry about the different ranges too much because the LCD will tell you what your distance can be based on the aperture you've told the flash you're using. If I set mine at f8 and ISO100, I might have a distance of 4' to 20' (just a guess). As long as I stay in that range, the flash exposure should be pretty close.

Shutter speed doesn't have any affect on flash exposure. However, if there is some ambient light, it's exposure is affected by aperture and shutter speed - just like you weren't using flash. You'd have to be in a completely dark room not to have any ambient light, but if it's a dark room like a bar then it's not much of a concern. Outdoors with fill flash is a different situation though; try exposing for the ambient daylight and set the flash one stop under that exposure. Experiment in dark areas with flash and different shutter speeds, starting at 1/60 and going slower. You'll get some motion blur but also a sharp image as well when the flash fires. It can be a great effect.