Every Tuesday I bring you a tidbit of information meant to enhance your photography skills or simply your appreciation of photography. This week’s tidbit: using flash outdoors.
Fill ‘er up
You may occassionally come across the phrase “fill flash” when talking with other photographers. For the amateur photographer, fill flash is used most often when you have a lot of light in the background but not enough light on your subject in the foreground. There are other circumstances in which you’d use it, but I’ll save that for another post.
Think about all the times you’ve taken a photo outside in the middle of the day and the person you’re taking a picture of ends up looking really dark in the photo. On most point and shoot cameras, people will throw the camera into Auto mode and simply let the flash turn on when the camera decides it’s necessary. However, in Auto mode, the flash only pops up when the camera detects there’s not enough light to avoid camera blur (see this post about avoiding camera blur). This can result in your subject being in the shadows on a perfectly sunny day, like the photo below. This image is straight out of my point and shoot camera, no editing (besides cropping) has been done to it. And yes, that is a pound of chocolate that Leo is attacking.
Leo attacks his pound of chocolate...in the shadows
Lighten up, man
Deciding whether or not you need more light on your subject is a completely subjective decision, one that your camera can’t make on its own. Throw your camera into Manual Mode (most cameras allow you to do this nowadays…usually labeled as an “M” on the dial) and then *force* the flash to stay on by hitting the little lightening bolt until it says “Flash On” (or the equivalent) on the screen. Now YOU’RE calling the shots around here. Take THAT, camera!
Every time you take a picture, the flash will go off and light up your subject. Check out Leo, again attacking his pound of chocolate, but this time in a properly exposed fashion. Again, this image is straight out of the camera and has only been cropped a bit.
Leo attacks his pound of chocolate again....in the glory of the light
So got get a pound of chocolate, a bright sunny day, a hungry friend and show your camera who’s boss. Happy shooting from Vantage!
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