Basic manual flashes, or "dumb" flashes do not communicate or receive information from your Mirrorless or DSLR camera, other than whether or not to fire a flash. This may present a challenge when being used with modern automated cameras.
Canon's Mirrorless and DSLR full-frame cameras often don't come with a built-in flash. The usual solution is to buy a "smart" flash that is automatically controlled by your camera, such as a Canon Speedlite, or a third-party flash that supports TTL (through the lens). This is true for both Canon DSLRs and Mirrorless EOS R cameras. An alternative is a basic/dumb flash attached to your camera's hot shoe.
Dumb flashes, or completely manual flashes, will only sync with your shutter, often to a limited shutter speed such as 1/200th of a second. To capture a photo that isn't blindingly overexposed, you have to adjust your camera's exposure yourself, as the camera doesn't know how to compensate for the added light from the dumb flash.
The following instructions may be followed on the Canon EOS RP, but will also be relevant to the Canon EOS R, R5, R8, R5, R7, and R3. Although this is also relevant for APS-C mirrorless crop cameras, they already have a built-in flash, so the usefulness of a manually controlled flash is reduced significantly.
Manual Flash Camera Settings
It's Easier with a TTL Flash...
Not to deter you, but this isn't a popular path to take, and you're likely better off just buying a Canon-friendly TTL capable flash, as it will result in less missed shots, and it will be much more user-friendly. If you're interested in adding manually controlled flash brightness to the regular exposure triangle, then please continue reading.
Using Manual/Dumb Flash with Canon DSLR & Mirrorless Cameras
This configuration applies to all Canon DSLR and EOS R cameras that don't have a built-in flash, or when you want to use a brighter manual flash with your APS-C camera. The configuration will be shown here on a Canon RP, but can be used on any camera with the settings available, they may just be on a different settings page.
Some of the suggestions here can actually be changed in post editing, but the intention here is to try to minimise, or completely avoid, post editing as much as possible.
There's definitely more than one way to set up your camera, this is just a way I found that was useful.
Set Manual or Fv Mode
You'll want to use Manual or Fv mode on your camera so that you can have full control of most exposure settings when you're using a manual hot shoe flash.
For a simple setup, manually lock in these values:
- Aperture: f/5.6
- Shutter Speed: 1/125 to 1/200 (check that it's lower than your maximum flash sync speed)
- ISO Speed: AUTO, or low at 400 - 1600 when flash is at low setting e.g. 1/64 flash power
These are just basic recommendations, and you'll have to find your own that suits both your camera and the manual flash that you are trying to use as flash brightness can vary a lot between different products.
Turn On Flash Firing
Even though your manual flash isn't a Speedlite, you'll still need to make sure this setting is enabled so that your camera will electronically communicate your shutter press to the manual flash. By default this is already Enabled, but if you're having trouble getting your manual flash to fire, then this is the first setting to check - assuming your flash itself is turned on, and mounted correctly.
Turn Off Exposure Simulation
A benefit of a mirrorless camera from the EOS R range, like the Canon RP, is the "Exposure Simulation" option that is defaulted to "ON". This allows your EVF (electronic viewfinder) and LCD display to show you a preview of the brightness of the resulting photo with your current settings. Just a reminder, the three settings it simulates is the combination of Aperture, Shutter Speed, and ISO.
Exposure Simulation needs to be disabled when it comes to a dumb flash - as the preview will be misleading since it can't compensate for the hot shoe attached flash's brightness, because the camera can't read or control it. If you leave this enabled, you will have an unusably dark view through both the EVF and LCD display.
Exposure Simulation can be found on Red Camera Menu #3 on the Canon RP. There are three options: Enabled, Disabled, Enabled during DOF Preview. I personally use the Previewable option, as that allows me to adjust exposure to an extent, without having to take a photo first, but it will be off when the preview button isn't held.
Set White Balance to Flash (or Custom)
Setting the White Balance to Flash instead of something like AWB (Auto White Balance), will correct for the extra white light from the manual flash.
If you feel that the photos are still too white or cold, you can use the "Custom" White Balance mode. With Custom, the higher the value, the more warmer or more yellow your photo will be. So going the other way, the lower your Custom White Balance value, the more white or blue tinted your photo will become.
I personally use a Custom White Balance value set at 7200 K, but that needs to be adjusted depending on your environment.
Enable Image Review
This is a "nice-to-have", as manually adjusting flash brightness or camera exposure will make incremental changes to your photo's brightness. Seeing the last shot taken as you go will help you make further minor adjustments to get exposure just right - whether it be going up or down a stop of light in ISO settings, or adjusting Exposure Compensation.
(Optional) Set Auto Lighting Optimizer
Experiment with this option if you want JPEG in-camera processing to attempt to balance out the lighting from the manual flash automatically after the photo is taken. You can turn it off completely if you're after something more raw.
If you leave it on "Standard" you'll increase your chances of capturing a JPEG photo that you'll keep as it attempts to save details in overly bright areas of a photo. But if you are post-editing, it's better to keep this off at "Disabled so that you can cleanly make your own changes.
Turn on Highlight Alert
This is a very useful "nice-to-have" feature when using a manual flash. If some parts of your photo have been overexposed by the manual flash, it will blink white and black to show you that. It's the fastest way for you to make a results based judgement call on whether or not those overexposed areas matter, or if you want to reduce your exposure or manual flash power level for future photos.
Saving Manual Flash Settings to a Custom Mode or Custom Menu
If your Canon camera saves Custom Modes, and you use a manual flash often, then it may be worth saving these settings to one of the C1, C2, C3 options.
If your Canon camera doesn't have Custom Modes, or you don't want to dedicate a position on the Mode dial for this, then you could setup a Custom Menu. Here is an example of one on the Canon RP:
The Custom Menu for Manual Flash on a Canon RP here contains:
- Exposure Simulation
- White Balance
- Auto Lighting Optimizer
- Exposure Compensation/AEB
- Image Review
- Highlight Alert
Shooting Technique
If you've assigned Exposure Simulation to DOF Preview, make sure you have a button assigned to that function. I've assigned DOF Preview to my AE Lock (asterisk * symbol). This will allow you to preview how dark your scene will appear with your exposure settings.
You'll need to practise to be familiar with your manual flash power and settings, this will allow you set its power based on your camera's distance to your target. The Exposure Simulation preview can help by showing you what may or may not be lit by your flash when you move between different lighting environments depending on how reduced your exposure is, and what has worked for your previously, it can help save you from constantly taking test shots.
Your flash's manual or documentation will tell you what the best power levels are for your flash based on the distance to your target, it usually bases it on an ISO speed of 100, so you'll need to adjust exposure from that point.
How to Adjust Exposure for Manual Flash
You'll have to manually adjust exposure to compensate for the selected manual flash brightness level based on the distance to your target. This can be achieved with adjusting any component of the exposure triangle: Shutter Speed, Aperture, or ISO speed.
Adjusting the ISO Speed manually yourself gives you fine control over exposure based on the flash output levels if you already know what shutter speed and aperture setting you want for your composition. Otherwise increasing shutter speed, or increasing aperture number values (thereby decreasing the actual size of the aperture) can also reduce overexposure in your photos.
In Manual Mode you can bind ISO Speed to the Control Ring on your RF lens or on the EOS EF to RF Control Ring Adapter. Shutter Speed should already be bound to your top dial, and Aperture to your back dial.
In Fv (Flexible-priority AE) mode, you can preset Shutter Speed and Aperture, then move the adjustment selector to ISO Speed to allow your on-camera dial to control that.
(Optional) Set ISO Speed Increment to 1-stop
You can adjust ISO speed increment settings so that it changes by 1-stop, and not 1/3-stop, as that more stops can make it a bit more fiddly. Doing things manually is slow enough already, and being able to do it quicker by skipping intermediate smaller ISO speed adjustments can help you get a well exposed shot, rather than missing the shot completely. This is best used with Custom Modes to prevent it applying to all modes on your Canon RP.
When shooting, this will allow you to quickly adjust ISO to compensate for brightness of the manual flash. If your photo is overexposed by the flash at ISO 800, either reduce the flash power level, or reduce your ISO speed by the required number of stops, down to something like ISO 400 or ISO 200. If your photo is still too dark at ISO 800, then you'll need to increase your flash power level, or your ISO speed to ISO 1600 or ISO 3200.
Alternative: Reduce Exposure Compensation
This is only relevant to those who are automating a part of the exposure triangle, for example leaving ISO at AUTO, while manually setting custom values for Shutter Speed and Aperture size. If you are manually setting all three values, then this will be disabled.
This value needs be reduced to a value below zero so that the manual flash will handle the compensation based on the brightness you set on the flash itself. Depending on the brightness of your flash, you may have to reduce Exposure Compensation to -2 or -3. The distance of your flash to your target will also need to be taken into consideration. So if your photo's target is underexposed, you'll either have to increase your flash power, or increase the exposure compensation to make up for it.
I find it easier to just adjust ISO values directly, rather than adjusting Exposure Compensation if your Shutter Speed and Aperture is already set.
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