Flash, TTL and HSS

Studio 05 has two kinds of light. Continuous Lighting burns all the time. Flash Lighting fires once, during the photo. Place a flash from Flash Lighting in the Library: softboxes, umbrellas, beauty dishes, open reflectors and spots, each with a flash head. The Inspector then shows Flash Light at the top. A flash starts at 1/16 power and 600 Ws.

Like a real studio flash, its color is fixed at daylight, 5600 K. To change the color, put a Gel on it in the Light tab, just as you would on set.

These are generic flash heads, not one brand. The reference is 600 Ws with guide number 87 at ISO 100 on an open reflector, and every modifier keeps its own estimated loss.

Flash power and energy

Flash mode chooses who sets the power. With Manual you set Flash power yourself, from 1/1 (full) down to 1/512 in third stops, as on a real flash head.

Flash energy is the output at full power, from 100 to 1200 Ws (watt-seconds). A 1200 Ws head at 1/2 gives the same light as a 600 Ws head at 1/1. Watts and watt-seconds are not the same thing, so a flash cannot be compared with the lamp power of a continuous light.

Flash duration

Flash duration is how long the flash burns. With Auto duration it gets shorter at lower power, as on a real flash: about 1/220 s at full power and much shorter at low power. You can also pick a fixed time from 1/200 to 1/20000 s.

Only the part of the flash that falls inside the shutter time ends up in the photo. A long flash with a very short shutter speed therefore records less light.

Shutter speed and the camera

A flash is so short that the shutter speed hardly changes how bright it is, while continuous light and daylight get brighter with a longer shutter. That is the classic way to balance flash with the room: the shutter speed sets the background, the aperture and the flash power set your subject. Aperture and ISO change both.

You see this in Camera view and the Camera monitor, which show the photo with the camera’s aperture, shutter speed and ISO.

TTL Auto

With TTL Auto Studio 05 meters through the photo camera and sets the power for you. It measures the model in focus, and only the part of that model the camera can see. When there is no model in the picture, it meters the middle of the picture. The Inspector tells you when the flash would need more than full power, or when even 1/512 is too much, with a tip for what to change.

TTL correction makes this one flash brighter or darker, from −3 to +3 EV in third stops. Camera TTL, next to the camera settings, does the same for every TTL flash at once, like flash correction on a camera body. It appears as soon as one flash is on TTL Auto. TTL meters again when you change the camera settings, the lights or the set.

HSS: high-speed sync

A camera can fire an ordinary flash up to 1/200 s. At shorter shutter speeds the flash needs HSS. The HSS setting is next to the camera settings and only appears when the set has a flash.

• HSS Auto switches to high-speed sync above 1/200 s. The flash then gives less light, and a shorter shutter speed makes it darker, just like continuous light. The light reading shows HSS.
• HSS Off keeps ordinary flash. Above 1/200 s the camera picture gets a red frame with This shutter speed needs HSS, and Print setup will not print that camera view until you choose 1/200 s or slower, or HSS Auto.

Where you see the flash

The Lights list in the Camera monitor and the Set List show each flash with its mode, power and energy, for example Manual 1/16 · 600 Ws. Light Info adds the flash duration and whether it fires as an ordinary flash or with HSS.