D200 Flash problem

[bindiblue]

I have noticed on a few occasions that my flash has really badly over exposed my photos, after checking the exif i have seen this,,

Flash Fired
Strobe return not detected (3)
Unknown flash mode (0)

Can anyone explain this to me, my friend has d70 and his say
Strobe return detected,
Auto mode, (3)

Do I have a problem or is it just some setting I have to change, I cannot find anything about this in my book,

Any help greatly appreciated

Suzanne

[NikonUser]

I don't really have much of an idea...

but the flash isn't in manual mode is it?

Paul

[Alex]

What aperture / iso are you using?

Alex

[firsty]

I'm not sure... but are you too far away and the camera can't detect the return light from the pre flashes in the area you are focus/metering on, so it is unable to set the correct power level and just gives you full power and over powers some parts of the scene that are not in the focus/metering area

[bindiblue]

Thanks guys for answering my problem,,, Alex the speed was 1/250 and F5.6

Firsty I was pretty close, and the other ones i look with same settings and same distance turned out ok,,, this is the photo in question.




Any help appreciated,
Suzanne

[MattC]

Hi Suzanne,

It may help to post the full exif data.

It looks like a shot taken in midday sun or direct sunlight, yet aperture and shutter speed seem a bit low.
You probably managed to hit the limit of your flash sync speed. The camera won't allow a faster shutter speed when flash is attached and aperture is locked in by aperture priority mode. As long as the flash was on you were always looking at overexposing. You needed to stop the lens down a couple of stops (or more) or attach an ND filter if you really wanted to use that aperture.

Cheers PS. ISO200 would not have helped either.

[gstark]

Suzanne,

Looks like it was a bright, sunny day, in which case 1/250 and f/5.6 with ISO 200 is only going to give you what you've presented here: an overexposed image.

The conditions suggest that your baseline exposure starting point should be more like 1/250 and f/13 or thereabouts with ISO 200, so you're behind the 8-ball to start with.

Why were you wanting to use the flash? Perhaps if you can tell us what your goal was, we can help you attain that. There are certainly ways to use flash successfully under those sorts of conditions.

And how rapidly were you firing off your images? In this instance, you may have been shooting too rapidly for the flash to recover fully from a previous firing. Thus you are using flash settings, the flash fires, but the camera fails to detect the flash response because of the flash being underpowered.

But none of this accounts for the basic fact that your settings made an over-exposed image an expected result for the conditions encountered and settings applied.

[big pix]

Also there has been the odd reporting from D200 users on various forums that some D200 do over expose in daylight, but ok in shadow areas and interiors........

[gooseberry]

Note that the D200 has a max. flash sync speed of 1/250s (you can use higher shutter speeds if you are in high speed FP sync mode with a flash that supports FP sync eg. SB800). So your shutter speed will be limited to 1/250s, and as Gary has pointed out, for the situation you were in, that setting of 1/250 and f/5.6 will cause overexposure of the image. You were in Aperture priority mode, so the camera would have warned you over overexposure by displaying a HI symbol where the shutter speed normally is.

[bindiblue]

Thanks ever so much for all the info,, I am taking the camera out on a test run tomorrow with a friend that has the D70, and going to compare shots,

We tried a few shots inside the house y.day and still the exif said no strobe return, being an absolute novice here, so sorry if I am not explaining myself correctly,,,

Hopefully tomorrow, I will get probs sorted out

suzanne