Lesson learned

[LoungeLizard]

Not sure if to put this here or in the "Photo Tips", but here goes.

Know your equipment. I know we all say that and we all think we do. Well, yesterday I had an experience that helped cement that in. The downside is that I lost many fine images (I can use some as B&W, but that's about it) as a result of this.

I was shooting outdoors in the middle of the afternoon. I put the flash on my DRebel just in case and set it in my preferred mode: AV. I took the first couple of shots, looked at the display, all looked good and then kept shooting. I was shooting ISO 100 and about f/8.

About the second or third series of shots, I decide to turn on my flash for a bit of fill and kept shooting. I looked at the display and had just a bit of blow out around the veil - not a big deal. Kept shooting and happened to peek and - BANG, severe blow out. I tried everything I could think of at the time - nothing changed it so I did the unbelievalbe: switched to "P" mode.

Took a break and started going through everything I was doing step by step to try and figure out why. It immediately hit me. Dare to guess?
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The flash synch speed was set at 1/200! The camera was honoring my aperture - BUT setting the shutter to 1/200 s which, if metered correctly would have resulted in f/22 or so!

So, remember all you know about your equipment! Lesson jotted down for future reference!

[ndsimm]

dang man, You gotta hate that, but at least it was digital and not film and you could recover some.