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The catch 22 scenario of flash photography |
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Volume 6, Number 9 |
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News Stanley is one of the speakers for the National Press Photographer's "Convergence 10" in Charleston, SC in July this year. Here is a link to the event. In This Issue The catch 22 scenario of flash photography
National Press Photographers Association University of Georgia University
of Nations, Kona, Hawaii Tips On Hiring A Photographer Digital Photography -- A Real
Stimulus Package Learning From The Masters Three Useful Doohickeys 300 PPI Come
Along Collaboration Public Speaking
for Communicators: How do people learn? Do Your Photos
Provide Context For Your Subject? Social Networking My Investment
Advice What about the
audience Teaching is a
great way to learn The Psychology of
the Telephoto Lens The Psychology of
the Wide-Angle Lens M-Audio Microtrack II This recorder lets you record in WAV or MP3 recording to compact flash card. Looking
for Microphone Think
Tank I have always used Nikon cameras and lenses through my career. They have a great line of cameras and lenses for any job. |
You are at a wedding under a tent and there appears to be enough light, but why does the subject keep coming out so dark? Ah if I turn on the flash now it looks so much better. Now it gets closer to dusk, now the background is too dark and I can’t tell where we are anymore, what can I do? The problem is that when you use the flash it lights up subjects close to you and the background goes dark or even black. THERE’S HOPE FOR YOU. If you have one of the newer digital cameras with ISO setting of 1600, 3200 or 6400 then you are in luck. These high ISO settings let you take photos with very little light. You can get photos in many situations where flash was required before. The issue many of us face is not the amount of light available, but the direction and quality of that light. If you are under a tent it is difficult to make a photograph where the outside isn’t in the background. This is where almost every subject has more light on the background than on their faces. If you a shooting in daytime, it is very simple to just turn on your flash and make photos. In this situation you most likely will not only get a well exposed photograph of the subject, but the background will be properly exposed. Another situation we will find ourselves shooting in is those wonderful sunrooms. You get to experience some of the outdoors in not only cool air conditioned environment, for many of us we experience it allergy free. In this situation if you turn the flash on to compensate for your subject’s being back lighted, you may have to move a little not to get glare in the glass. The simplest way to do this is be sure you are not perpendicular to the window, but on a slight angle.
Once you have used a flash in these scenarios you quickly discover the joy of photography that you not only have a well exposed subject, you have a background that is well exposed and helps you capture the environment. SUNLIGHT AND FLASH DO MIX Even at the beach where there is sunlight practically everywhere a flash can improve your photos. Often we light to have the sun behind the subject at the beach for a very obvious reason—less squinting. But now the subject is backlit and due to this you have a similar effect of under a tent, just not as drastic of a light difference. Turn your flash on and open up those shadows.
During the middle of the day when the sun is directly overhead you end up with people having raccoon eyes. This is where the sun casts a shadow on folks eyes, especially if they have deep set eyes and/or they are wearing a hat. FLASH AT DAWN AND DUSK Just the other day I was photographing at a friend’s wedding. The wedding started at 6 p.m. and as we moved into the reception the light was dropping pretty quickly until it was dark. Now if you have your camera set to automatically do it all for you and you read the manual on how to force the flash on rather than just automatic mode, then you could take the photos like I described above. The reason I didn’t tell you how to do this with your camera is every camera manufacturer has a different way to do this not only for their brand, but often their own different models do it differently—so read your manual.
Now if you just turn your flash on under the tent as the light is dropping off you most likely will get a dark or even black background. The reason for this is your camera if in an automatic mode will drop to the lowest ISO setting when your flash is turned on. Even if your camera has an ISO as high as 6400, you most likely will be shooting at an ISO of 100 or 200 the minute you turn the flash on. Why is this default? Well, the main reason is the lower the ISO the better the quality of the image. You have a greater dynamic range and the photos have less contrast and the colors are more accurate. Up until just a couple of years ago, shooting anything above an ISO of 400 rendered pretty awful quality. Only in the last couple of years did the camera manufacturers improve the quality of the high ISO. Today the quality of many cameras shooting at an ISO of 6400 looks as good as ISO 400 of just a few years ago. Now you can shoot at ISO 6400 and get wonderful results.
I would say in most situations today with these new cameras with ISO of 6400 for example, you can make great photos without flash in normally lit rooms inside. For the wedding I was at they had candles on the table and one chandelier in the middle of the tent and the amount of light even at 6400 at 10 p.m. that night wasn’t enough to even make the photos. But when we first were under the tent at 6:30 p.m. there was enough light outside I could have had my camera set on auto everything and forced the flash on and had good exposure on the faces and background looking wonderful. This is what I was basically doing then, but as the night fell the background started to go very dark. So, what I did was change my ISO to 800 and a little later I raised it again to 1200 and by the end of the night I was up to 6400 ISO.
BONUS FEATURE Now another bonus of shooting with a flash when your camera is set at ISO 6400, is the flash doesn’t use as much light and your batteries will last longer. SUMMARY Find your camera manual and read two sections—how to turn your flash on and how to change the ISO. Once you know how to override the auto everything on your camera you will not only get better photographs, you will finally get the photos this camera can do that you couldn’t do with the $8 disposable camera.
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