Original subtitles

Welcome to your next lesson, the TTL mode.

TTL was my worst nightmare in the beginning

of my flash journey and it turned out

to be one of my best friends today.

It might be a bit counterintuitive but only

after learning how to use flash in manual

mode I started learning and using the automatic

TTL mode.

TTL just didn't give me the control I

needed in the beginning and it got me

confused more often than not.

Now, if you switch your flash to TTL

mode you will notice two things.

First, the flash now fires twice for each

photograph and secondly, you will feel like it's

getting a bit out of your control again.

But let's go back to the beginning and

check what is TTL anyway.

TTL stands for through the lens metering and

it basically means that the flash measures the

needed output through the lens of your camera.

That's why it fires twice.

First pop is the test shot and the

second pop is the actual flash firing.

This way the flash and camera work together

and they measure how much light is needed

and then the flash fires accordingly.

So, if your camera settings are more towards

underexposure of the ambient light the flash will

fire stronger to compensate for that and it

will become more dominant in the photo or

if you expose for shadows or overexpose your

highlights in the ambient light the flash will

barely even pop when in TTL mode.

Additionally, you can fine-tune the TTL mode

by pushing it up or down manually.

This will overrule the automatic setting in a

way that the flash will still do more

or less everything automatically but a bit stronger

or weaker as you set it.

I'd probably never use TTL mode if there

wasn't this extra layer of setting.

It gives me the control I need in

order to create the pictures exactly as I

want but like any automatic setting TTL will

sometimes work perfectly but also sometimes screw you

up.

However, with some practice and with the option

of setting it additionally to minus or plus

power you can fine-tune it to almost

always get the perfect result.

As I said, even though it sounds strange

in the beginning to me personally it was

much easier to practice and understand how flash

works in the manual mode.

Although the TTL is basically automatic it kept

confusing me for quite a long time yet

nowadays I use TTL for probably 80%

of my shots and even with the automatic

TTL I still use the same old trick

of turning off the flash then setting the

camera first and then adding the flash last.

Let's see how this works in practice.

So we will again expose the camera for

the room's ambient light.

Let's take a shot and see what we

have and now we will turn on the

flash and set it in TTL mode.

We will take a shot as it is

and what we will get is probably a

bit overexposed picture.

Now try overruling TTL to minus one setting.

What we will get is less flash output

that basically just fills the shadows and if

our initial exposure was set properly and we

then increase it to plus one we will

get the opposite result a completely overexposed picture

by flash.

Just note that these are more extreme scenarios

of overruling.

I would normally overrule only by one or

two thirds in each direction depending on what

result I'm trying to get.

For example if I'm in a room and

I want to show more of the available

light I might tone down the TTL setting

to one third or two thirds.

This will allow me to have a consistent

flash output as I move around the room

and as I come in closer or further

away from my subject.

If I were using the manual mode I

would have to change my flash setting each

time I come closer or further away from

my subject so this is where TTL comes

in super handy.

Same goes for shooting in any other setting.

I would set up my desired balance between

flash and available light and then let the

TTL do the hard work for me.

But as I said it's not always perfect.

Sometimes the flash will pop stronger than it

should and for example if there are some

dark colors in the background of your subject

the dark background will trick the flash into

thinking the situation is darker than it actually

is so it might pop stronger and overexpose

the picture.

Or for example if we're shooting backlit if

there is a window in the background it

might go in the opposite way it will

falsely measure that there is more light than

there is so it will fire weaker.

But again as you understand how the balance

of the available light and the flash works

along with these little caveats you will be

less likely to get confused with your flash's

decisions when it's in TTL mode.

After all you can always switch back to

the trusted manual mode and make all calls

yourself.

Overall TTL mode is a fantastic tool that

can save you time and effort in micro

-adjusting your flash settings all day and as

with any other new technique it will require

some practice and testing to get a hang

of it.

But once you do it will become an

essential part of your photography tool set.

And yeah I know that practices from this

and previous lesson might get you a bit

overwhelmed or confused in the beginning but hey

that's the ice that we have to break

in order to go further.

So keep practicing replay this or the previous

lesson until you get it and sooner than

you think you will be rocking both manual

and TTL modes like a pro.

Stay strong and even more importantly stay curious.

So now that we've covered the part about

setting our flash output we can go to

our next lesson and explore another super interesting

setting of your flash the zoom function.

See you in the next lesson.