Created by James Ryan Carssow © 2009
Use of flash with older film cameras was often a misunderstood and feared facet of photography for many novice photographers. But today’s digital TTL (through the lens) automated flash systems are technological marvels that take most of the guess-work out of using photographic flash.
An in-depth examination of flash would take up too much room for this guide, but suffice to say using the TTL flash mode on your camera or external flash is all you need to use most of the time, with perhaps a few tweaks for various situations.
Camera-brand flash
When buying an external hot-shoe mounted flash, you should always use the camera-brand flash. The flash systems of top DSLR camera manufacturers like Nikon and Canon are extremely sophisticated and engineered to work seamlessly with their own brand of cameras and lenses.
Buying the camera-brand flash is a no-brainer. Don’t waste your money on an off-brand flash like Sunpak, Quantary, or Vivitar.
In the film days, those companies made cheaper flashes that produced decent results. But with digital – which is much more technologically difficult to sync with flash – using anything other than the camera brand flash system is just asking for headaches and poor results.
If you ever get to the point of buying the larger studio strobe systems, then you can buy something other than the camera brand. But you’ll need to know how to set up and control those studio flash systems manually.
Types of flash
Built-in on-camera flash or “pop up flash”
Use of flash with older film cameras was often a misunderstood and feared facet of photography for many novice photographers. But today’s digital TTL (through the lens) automated flash systems are technological marvels that take most of the guess-work out of using photographic flash.
An in-depth examination of flash would take up too much room for this guide, but suffice to say using the TTL flash mode on your camera or external flash is all you need to use most of the time, with perhaps a few tweaks for various situations.
Camera-brand flash
When buying an external hot-shoe mounted flash, you should always use the camera-brand flash. The flash systems of top DSLR camera manufacturers like Nikon and Canon are extremely sophisticated and engineered to work seamlessly with their own brand of cameras and lenses.
Buying the camera-brand flash is a no-brainer. Don’t waste your money on an off-brand flash like Sunpak, Quantary, or Vivitar.
In the film days, those companies made cheaper flashes that produced decent results. But with digital – which is much more technologically difficult to sync with flash – using anything other than the camera brand flash system is just asking for headaches and poor results.
If you ever get to the point of buying the larger studio strobe systems, then you can buy something other than the camera brand. But you’ll need to know how to set up and control those studio flash systems manually.
Types of flash
Built-in on-camera flash or “pop up flash”
- Convenient (don’t have to worry about carrying extra gear)
- Decent results when used properly for subjects at short distances.
- Only option is straight ahead “deer in headlights” flash
- Limited power and flexibility
External hot-shoe mountable flash
- Flexible – point the flash head in any direction 360 degrees to bounce the light off of walls, ceilings etc. for a softer flash effect
- When coupled with a diffuser box (translucent white plastic cover over the flash head) and bounced off a low- to moderate-height ceiling at a 45-degree angle delivers the most pleasing and evenly distributed on-camera man-made light possible.
- Much better power and distance/range than built-in flash, but not up to capabilities of professional strobes
- One extra piece of equipment to lug around
Professional strobes and studio lighting systems
- Best man-made lighting option available
- Extremely expensive
- Complicated (too complicated for further discussion in this guide)
- Not easily portable – these large and cumbersome lighting systems often require two or three large cases full of equipment to operate
When and how to use flash
When, where, and how to use flash still confuses many novice photographers. The common
misunderstanding is that flash is only needed indoors or to freeze action. Most novice photographers would never consider using flash outdoors under bright sunlight, which is actually one scenario where “fill flash” is most needed.
Here are some tips …
Indoors – this is when most “automated” cameras use flash. When there is not sufficient natural light to get a decent exposure at hand-held shutter speeds, flash is used to augment the natural light with often mediocre results. Here are ways to improve indoor flash exposure:
Don’t use flash at all. Unless you need flash to help freeze people or other movingsubjects, many indoor photos are better without flash. If you can gain proper exposure and a fast enough shutter speed without flash, then do so, or use a tripod or IS/VR capable lens. Placing subjects, especially for portraits, near windows to allow outside light to illuminate the subject is a classic technique.
Bounce or diffuse your flash – this is when an external hot-shoe mounted flash becomes your most important photographic tool. Watch your average wedding photographer working the reception area. He/she will almost certainly have an external flash and will often diffuse the light through a soft box or by bouncing the light off the ceiling. This gives a much softer, more even exposure than the typical “deer in headlights” straight flash effect. It also greatly reduces the chance of “red eye”. Red eye, by the way, is caused by the flash being too close to the camera lens and firing too much light too directly at the eyes. With the external flash mounted higher above the camera lens and the light bounced or diffused, the chances of red eye are greatly diminished.
You can try diffusing the light from your camera’s pop-up flash by putting a piece of wax paper in front of the flash. But beware the pop up flash has little flash power to begin with and diffusing it in this manner will reduce that power even further. So be sure your subjects are physically close and that you don’t want/need to see much detail in the background, which will likely show up as almost black. Balance the flash exposure with the ambient room lighting exposure by reducing the power of the flash (look up flash exposure compensation in your user guide) so that both the foreground subject and the background surroundings are properly exposed and visibly detailed. This can often be semi-automated with a “SLOW” setting on your camera or flash. Some cameras, especially the point-n-shoot variety, also call this the “NIGHT” flash setting or “PARTY MODE”. But be careful when doing this to customize your white balance. Ambient light from incandescent or fluorescent bulbs combined with pure white light from the flash can produce some strangely colored results. If you want to get very particular about this, there are colored “gels” or filters that fit over your flash head (just like colored lens filters) to correct white balance issues when combining flash light with ambient lighting.
Outdoors – this is where most automated cameras don’t use flash, but where it is often most useful.
Bounce or diffuse your flash – this is when an external hot-shoe mounted flash becomes your most important photographic tool. Watch your average wedding photographer working the reception area. He/she will almost certainly have an external flash and will often diffuse the light through a soft box or by bouncing the light off the ceiling. This gives a much softer, more even exposure than the typical “deer in headlights” straight flash effect. It also greatly reduces the chance of “red eye”. Red eye, by the way, is caused by the flash being too close to the camera lens and firing too much light too directly at the eyes. With the external flash mounted higher above the camera lens and the light bounced or diffused, the chances of red eye are greatly diminished.
You can try diffusing the light from your camera’s pop-up flash by putting a piece of wax paper in front of the flash. But beware the pop up flash has little flash power to begin with and diffusing it in this manner will reduce that power even further. So be sure your subjects are physically close and that you don’t want/need to see much detail in the background, which will likely show up as almost black. Balance the flash exposure with the ambient room lighting exposure by reducing the power of the flash (look up flash exposure compensation in your user guide) so that both the foreground subject and the background surroundings are properly exposed and visibly detailed. This can often be semi-automated with a “SLOW” setting on your camera or flash. Some cameras, especially the point-n-shoot variety, also call this the “NIGHT” flash setting or “PARTY MODE”. But be careful when doing this to customize your white balance. Ambient light from incandescent or fluorescent bulbs combined with pure white light from the flash can produce some strangely colored results. If you want to get very particular about this, there are colored “gels” or filters that fit over your flash head (just like colored lens filters) to correct white balance issues when combining flash light with ambient lighting.
Outdoors – this is where most automated cameras don’t use flash, but where it is often most useful.
Under bright sunlight conditions, especially when photographing people for posed shots and portraits, USE YOUR FLASH. The automated system in your camera won’t do it for you. You have to “force” your camera to fire the flash on a manual or semi-manual setting. Using flash in bright sunlight is called “fill flash” and is perhaps the most important and under-utilized use of camera flash. When human subjects are lit by extremely bright mid-day sun, faces often become a mixture of properly exposed bright areas and dark, detail-less shadows. By using proper fill flash, the subject’s entire face is brightly lit with little to no shadow and the result is a bright, beautiful face against a bright and beautiful sunlit background. Fill flash in bright sunlight is the same basic technique used by the photographers who shoot models in bikinis for the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue and other publications (along with reflectors, shades, and other more complicated techniques). Most TTL flash systems are great at fill flash, with some minor tweaking of flash exposure compensation. But YOU, the photographer, must initiate the use of flash under bright sunlight. The camera’s auto mode simply will not do this. AND this is really one of the ONLY times you should ever use full power straight ahead flash. If possible, you should always bounce or diffuse your flash if not in direct sunlight.
With subjects in shade but a bright sunlit background, you can use flash to “balance” the exposure of the subject and background. If flash is not used, then to properly expose the shaded subject, the sunlit background will be over-exposed. Or, more commonly, the whole photo will be “properly exposed” according to the camera, leaving the shaded subject underexposed and dark. Using flash to balance a shaded subject against a bright background may require some tweaking of white balance, but usually not to the extent needed for balanced indoor flash.
Subjects outdoors at night offer the same difficulty with flash exposure as indoor subjects, but without the easy solution of bouncing a flash off a ceiling. Try using your flash pointed straight at the subject but with SLOW or REAR flash setting. Or diffuse your straight ahead flash and adjust flash exposure compensation until you get a pleasing result. If photographing distant subjects at night, no flash in existence will have enough power to illuminate the scene or subject. You’ll need to use a long exposure and a camera mounted on a stable tripod.
With subjects in shade but a bright sunlit background, you can use flash to “balance” the exposure of the subject and background. If flash is not used, then to properly expose the shaded subject, the sunlit background will be over-exposed. Or, more commonly, the whole photo will be “properly exposed” according to the camera, leaving the shaded subject underexposed and dark. Using flash to balance a shaded subject against a bright background may require some tweaking of white balance, but usually not to the extent needed for balanced indoor flash.
Subjects outdoors at night offer the same difficulty with flash exposure as indoor subjects, but without the easy solution of bouncing a flash off a ceiling. Try using your flash pointed straight at the subject but with SLOW or REAR flash setting. Or diffuse your straight ahead flash and adjust flash exposure compensation until you get a pleasing result. If photographing distant subjects at night, no flash in existence will have enough power to illuminate the scene or subject. You’ll need to use a long exposure and a camera mounted on a stable tripod.
Lastly, many photographers will attempt to use flash to freeze action when they cannot achieve a fast enough shutter speed to do so. This is OK if there is no alternative, but do not expect stellar results.
You can expect plenty of “deer in headlights” exposures with visible and detailed subjects but backgrounds that quickly fade to black. Also this technique greatly increases the probability of red eye in human subjects. And using this technique is banned at many sporting events as it interferes with the players’ ability to see clearly. Worst of all, using flash in any circumstance takes a lot of battery power. But using flash as the main “spotlight” form of illumination will drain batteries in record time. And portable flash units do not have sufficient battery power to quickly “recycle” for a subsequent full power burst of light.
So even if your camera can photograph 5 frames per second, only the first one or two of those frames will even be visible as the flash fails to recycle its power and thus fails to fire at all for the last few frames of a quick burst.
You can expect plenty of “deer in headlights” exposures with visible and detailed subjects but backgrounds that quickly fade to black. Also this technique greatly increases the probability of red eye in human subjects. And using this technique is banned at many sporting events as it interferes with the players’ ability to see clearly. Worst of all, using flash in any circumstance takes a lot of battery power. But using flash as the main “spotlight” form of illumination will drain batteries in record time. And portable flash units do not have sufficient battery power to quickly “recycle” for a subsequent full power burst of light.
So even if your camera can photograph 5 frames per second, only the first one or two of those frames will even be visible as the flash fails to recycle its power and thus fails to fire at all for the last few frames of a quick burst.
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