In Program Mode the default for flash is 1/60. You won't be able to do better than f4 because that's the max of your lens.

If you like the look of Auto and the Light Sphere I say Go For It. That's the object of practicing with the gear, to find your personal comfort zone. Sounds like you're getting a handle on it.

yet another question:

How do I do "fill" flash on this flash?
Do I leave it in E-TTL or do I use Manual?

I think this is the best flash you will find. The numbers you cite are the range within which you may expect to get a decent shot.

Have you tried both camera and flash on "Manual"?

Outside, I normally use "A" on the camera and ETTL on the flash. Sometimes I need to dial back the flash to some minus number.

dial back the flash?

Can you explain a bit more.
What do you dial back?

Here is what I found while testing this weekend....

Camera: Canon 1D ii N
Lens: Canon 24-105
Flash: Metz 54 mz-3

Testing a location shoot showed some ?Soft? images upon inspection on the PC.
I took a model to a wedding location that I would working in about 2 weeks.
The wedding is in the middle of the day in a location where I?ve never been.

So I took the time to take my main equipment to the location and do some testing.


Time of day was 1pm and bright.
I was both inside and outside

Here is what I did:
1) Camera in:
a. ?P? program mode
b. ISO 400
2) Flash in E-ttl

3) I took images of the model with the flash ?ON? (to remove shadows from the face)

4) The flash was both directly facing the model and bounced (where it could be)
5) I shot the full range of the lens - 24-105
6) When I went to review the images I found:
7) It seemed a bit grainy
8) The images looked soft, not nearly as crisp as I would have expected

9) I was able to bring the some crispness back if I ?de-noised? it in Photoshop / noise ninja, yet it still wasn?t as crisp as I wanted

10) Due to the brightness outside ? the camera readings were something like: F14 at 1/250th at iso 400 (not all but most all were pretty high in the f-range).

Any thoughts of what I did wrong?

I will test again ?with the following settings:
1) ISO much lower


I?m a bit nervous ? I plan on using this exact same setup for a wedding I?m doing in a few weeks.

I?ve not had this problem yet.