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farthest right, bottom indicator is a dot to show that the camera has found something to
focus on.
5 Flash
5.1 Built In Flash
The Elan II/IIe’s Built In Flash is TTL only. Like all such built in flash units, it is
limited by its low power. It is also very close to the lens axis, and this frequently
causes the dreaded red eye effect in your pictures, which is really just the flash lighting
up the back side of the subject’s eyeball. Moving the flash farther above your lens is
the best solution. This will also cause any shadows on the wall behind your subject
to fall below the image of your subject where it will either not be seen or not be as
objectionable.
The built in flash unit also houses a bright white light that acts as a red eye reduction
lamp. With the flash up and red eye enabled, press and hold the shutter button until the
graph indicator at the bottom of the viewfinder (as well as the one in the LCD) centers
itself. Then take the picture. What happens is the bright light shines in the eyes of the
subject and causes the iris of the eye to contract, reducing the red reflection from the
back of the eye. Most people find this totally annoying, so now that you know how to
do it, turn the thing off! There are better ways of dealing with red eye. Including red
eye removal pens for your prints.
When using some larger lenses the built in flash may be partially blocked by the
lens barrel. This will cause a rounded shadow at the bottom of the picture. This is most
pronounced at wide zoom settings and close distances. The cure is to use an external
flash since it is mounted higher above the lens.
5.2 Flash Metering
The Elan II/IIe is capable of Through The Lens (TTL) and Advanced TTL (A-TTL)
flash metering with external Canon E and EZ series Speedlites. It is also capable of
Evaluative TTL (E-TTL) flash metering with external Canon EX series Speedlites. For
several reasons, E-TTL is generally the preferred metering method.
With TTL and A-TTL, the camera’s built-in flash meter senses the light Through
The Lens (TTL) and reflected Off The Film (OTF). When enough light has reached the
film the camera signals the flash to stop it’s flash pulse. This all takes place in less than
1/1000 second. On the Elan II/IIe this exposure is metered by a four area, three zone
flash meter and metering is biased toward the general area of whatever autofocus point
is active at the time.
With E-TTL mode, the flash exposure control is determined before the shutter
opens by means of a pre-flash that is metered by the same meter as the camera’s regular,
ambient light, evaluative meter. This pre-flash occurs about 1/20 second before the
main flash and you can usually see it in the viewfinder just before it blacks out for the
exposure. This system compares the ambient light reading with the flash reading and
adjusts both the ambient exposure and flash exposure to, hopefully, provide the optimal
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