I am looking to use My sunpak 555 flash outdoors as fill... In school they said you should do light tests indoors before going out as you can not meter that low a out put accurate in the bright sun...I do not have a decent indoor place to do it properly 3,6,9,12 feet ect... at what ever asa and output... But what about doing this outside After Dark... Will my meter read the light properly with the sun being taken out of the issue...I have a sekonic L-508... this would not be an issue if I could afford 1200$ for a porta pack for my Dynalite 1000ws packs...

Of course as I never had a teacher spend more then 15 mins on the whole fill flash issue I may have all my facts mixed up...

I have various cameras Nikon DLSR, RZ67, 4x5.... I want to know I can do what I want on any camera...

Set your light meter to read ambient and flash and you should be good to go. Set the meter on ambient only, take a reading without the flash, then set it to ambient plus flash and fire the flash. Compare these values to determine the relative impact of the flash. If you want the flash to have more of an impact on your subject/foreground then increase your shutter speed. See my articles on PPR for more strobe/ambient details.

my meter will only do ambient or flash if it means anything the sunpak 555 has guide number of 150 +/-



StephenDantzig:
Set your light meter to read ambient and flash and you should be good to go. Set the meter on ambient only, take a reading without the flash, then set it to ambient plus flash and fire the flash. Compare these values to determine the relative impact of the flash. If you want the flash to have more of an impact on your subject/foreground then increase your shutter speed. See my articles on PPR for more strobe/ambient details.

Hi Jayson,

I don't mean this to be sarcastic and I hope it doesn't sound that way, but you need to either: find out if and how your meter reads both ambient plus strobe...or get a new meter! I'll never forget my second day in a Will Crockett four day workshop. We were reviewing what we learned on day 1. Will was going through a list and turned to me and in all seriousness said "...and Steve learned that he needs to buy a new meter!" I'm sorry to say it, but so, probably, do you. TRUST me: it will make life MUCH more pleasant for you. I honestly don't know about guide numbers. I'd rather judge my lighting based on known entities and a good meter makes the unknown known. You don't need to break the bank for a quality flash/light meter. Check into Gossen or Sekonic.