Using Variable Power: Flash Compensation (M-REC Mode Only)

We can use the +/- to increase or decrease exposure. This is the feature called Exposure Compensation. Unfortunately, this feature does not work with flash photography. Rather than increasing or decreasing exposure when a flash is used, you need to increase or decrease the flash power and this is what variable power means. Keep in mind that this is only available when the camera is in M-REC.

So, why is thie variable power (of flash) necessary? This is similar to exposure compensation. Under certain situations, we want to increase the exposue. Since exposure compensation does not work with flashes, to increase (resp., decrease) exposure is equivalent to increase (resp., decrease) the power of the flash under the same apertue and shutter speed. Therefore, this is the way of using variable power.

Activating Variable Power

To activate variable power, follow the procedure below:

• Turn the Mode Dial to M-REC.
• Press the MENU button twice to bring up the USER SETTING menu as shown in the left image below. Then, use the up and down arrow of the multi-selector to go down and highlight the flash icon. See the right image below.
• This brings us to the SPEEDLIGHT OPT. menu. Use the right arrow of the multi-selector to select SPEEDLIGHT OPT. Then, two options appear as shown in the left image below. The first option, Variable Power, is what we want.

• Use the right arrow of the multi-selector to select Variable Power. Then, a set of numbers appear. These numbers give the power increase or decrease of the internal flash in an increment of 1/3 stop. The maximum and minimum are +2.0 stop and -2.0 stop, respectively. This is shown in ths right image above. You can use the up and down arrows of the multi-selector to highlight the adjustment value you want and use the right arrow to make a selection.
• Once the above steps complete, press the MENU to return to the M-REC shooting mode.

  Note that once this option is chosen, it will stay there even after turning off the camera. Therefore, you need to go through the above procedure again to reverse the setting..

Examples

The following images show the same scene with different flash power output. From left to right, the flash output power is set to -2.0 stop, -1.0 stop, 0 stop, -1 stop and -2 stop. The images were shot with the aperture-priority mode with shutter speed 1/125 sec (the flash synchronization shutter speed) and F9.1. The impact of flash output power on the image brightness is obvious. Thus, this variable power feature can serve as a way of performing exposure compensation when using the internal flash.

-2.0 stop	-1.0 stop	0 stop	+1.0 stop	+2.0 stop
Click on the image to see a larger one