What flash guide number is needed to keep a sunny-day subject properly exposed while darkening the background by 2 stops?
Asked 1/2/2014
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On a sunny day using the Sunny 16 rule at ISO 100, ambient exposure is about f/16 at 1/100s. If I instead shoot at f/11 and 1/800s to make the background 2 stops darker, how strong would a flash need to be to bring a subject at 2.5m back up to normal exposure? For example, if a GN 40 flash would correctly expose the subject at f/16 and 2.5m in darkness, does that only add one stop over the sun, leaving me still one stop short? Also, how do sync-speed or HSS limits affect this?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
12y ago
2 Answers
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You are correct, light is additive, so if the flash provides the same amount of illumination to the subject as the sun, and if no flash spills onto the background, then the background will be one stop darker than the subject.
To underexpose the background by 2 stops would require a flash with three times the power, guide number 70.
It's worth noting that guide numbers are useful for comparing flash brightness, but are not always useful for calculating actual light output at certain distances because modern hot-shoe flashes have optics to change the width of the beam, effectively focusing the light at further distances so the inverse square law on which the guide number is based doesn't necessarily apply.
However, from experience, I've never used a hot-shoe flash that was capable of underexposing the background by 2 stops on a bright sunny day at any sensible distance. Very high powered units have been produced in the past, but seem less popular now as high ISO performance is so much better with digital than it was with film, so people can always up the ISO (this doesn't help underexpose the background, but that's a rare use case).
The second problem with underexposing the background by 2 stops comes from the flash sync speed. Most cameras can't shoot the flash at full power with shutter speeds faster than 1/250s or 1/200s. So you wouldn't be able to shoot at f/11 & 1/800s, as per your example. You'd have to use f/22 & 1/200s, at which point diffraction can be a problem.
Originally by user1375. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user1375
12y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
Yes—light is additive.
At f/11 and 1/800s, the ambient light on the subject is 2 stops under normal, so ambient provides only 1/4 of the needed exposure. The flash must supply the remaining 3/4.
Using guide numbers directly, at 2.5m and f/11, the full-flash GN for a subject lit only by flash would be: GN = distance × f-number = 2.5 × 11 = 27.5
Because ambient already contributes 1/4 of the total exposure, the flash does not need the full GN 27.5. Since exposure is proportional to the square of guide number, you need about sqrt(3/4) ≈ 0.87 of that:
Required GN ≈ 27.5 × 0.87 ≈ 24
So a flash around GN 24 (ISO 100, at the relevant zoom setting) would theoretically be enough, assuming the flash only lights the subject and not the background.
A GN 40 flash would add about as much light as the sun in your first example, which would make the subject 1 stop brighter than ambient alone—not enough to think of as “two stops recovered” in the way guide numbers scale.
Practical catch: 1/800s is above normal flash sync on many cameras, so you may need leaf shutter, electronic shutter, or HSS. HSS usually reduces effective flash power a lot.
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