FAQ
FAQ Page 3
Flash is a useful tool.
Many people take a lot of pictures without flash. There are a lot of photos that could be much better with a little flash. Flash tends to decrease exposure differences between sunlight and shadow so your photos look more real. I will describe some techniques to use flash to help your photography.
Fill flash
Most modern digital cameras have a problem exposing properly for both highlight and a shadow area. If you expose for the highlight or brightest area, the shadows fall to black. If you expose for the shadows, the highlights blow out to white. This is because digital sensors have a limited range from shadows to highlights. This is where fill flash really shines (pun intended). Fill flash is especially useful in macro photography of flowers to soften harsh sunlight. Just use a TTL remote cable for your flash which allows you to move the flash to the best position.
When used properly the flash can shift your tonal range so your image looks like the original scene. The technique is as follows.
Set your camera to a manual exposure setting. Set an aperture that gives you sufficient depth of field for your scene. Balance the exposure using the shutter speed dial. The shutter speed has to be below the flash sync speed. On most cameras this is less than 1/200th second.
Turn on the flash. It will automatically set itself with the TTL circuitry. When you take the picture the flash will fire and fill the shadows with enough light to brighten them up a little. If the flash adds too much light just use the flash compensation control to lower its intensity. This setup can be used for nature photography as well as portraiture.
No Fill Flash Fill Flash
Fill Flash No Fill Flash
Drag the Shutter Flash
Have you ever noticed that flash exposures in a dark environment have black backgrounds? This happens because you are only using the aperture of the camera to set exposure. With flash photography the aperture controls flash exposure and the shutter speed controls ambient light exposure. By putting your camera on a tripod and slowing down the shutter to allow some ambient light exposure the details in to background will appear.
In Aperture Priority mode, set the aperture to the correct one for your subject. The shutter speed will give you a good background exposure for the scene. Turn on your flash and fire away. As long as the shutter speed is below the cameras flash sync speed ( generally 1/200th of a second ) it will work. As long as you are on a tripod you can use shutter speeds down to 1 second.
Drag the Shutter plus Flash
Available Light
Drag the shutter with Flash Available Light
Mike is the resident Macintosh computer guy and Canon shooter. I've been doing photography since 1970 and I really like Macintosh computers because they are so easy to use.
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