the time
you're likely to
use your flash is in a low light situation like
this, dinner with friends party on holiday or something like that
if you're going to take a picture,
point your camera at the subject
and your little on camera flash will probably pop up automatically because
the camera knows it's quite dark
Let me take a picture of Robyn with the on camera
flash, to show you the kind of thing it can do.
It's quite a nice picture
but the lights really really harsh, it's kind of like
very very bright and there's a strong shadow on the wall behind her
which is okay,
but it's not brilliant is it?
the reason this happens is because the light source
this little tiny flash is very small and the light it produces
is like a jet of water which flies out and smacks straight into Robyn
and it causes a shadow up the wall
and another way of describing it would be like a shining a torch at somebody.
when you got to take a flash
your camera actually produces two flashes.
one is a low power flash which bounces of the subject and comes up the lens the camera measures it and
works out the exposure, it tells your flash what it needs to do
and then you press the button, the shutter opens and
the flash fires the shutter closes and you've caught a picture.
Now this opening and closing of the shutter is very
very quick, usually it's a sixtieth of a second, but you can go into manual and change it.
but don't go there for the minute if you're just beginning with flash
Because it's only a sixtieth of a second which is a very short about of time
there's not enough
time for the available light, what you can see with your
eyes in the room
to affect the picture in any way
it is purely lit with the flash and that can cause problems with this harsh-ness
so the best thing to do is, get yourself a dedicated flash gun.
Like this one here.
dedicated means dedicated to your camera, you've got
to buy the right one for your camera you can't just go out and buy any old thing you like.
because it won't work.
so you click it in place,
the dedicated gun talks to your camera through the connections in the hot shoot.
Let me take that picture of Robyn again, turn the flash on
here we go, point that a Rob
Now look the light on Robyn is much much nicer
because this is a very slightly larger flash source, it's going to make
a slightly bigger sort of area that the light's coming from which makes the picture better.
But the shadow has got worse, that's because the distance between the flash and
the lens is greater so it's just shining in at an angle and just throwing a larger shadow.
the first thing you could do is to fit a diffuser, one of these
little translucent things, they usually come free as standard dedicated flash
and it just slots on the front like that, that's all there is to it.
This is like taking a garden hose and selecting the sprinkler setting,
the jet of light is coming out and hitting this translucent plastic
and shattering into all sorts of directions which gives you a much nicer, softer looking light.
and straight away you can see the light on Robyns
face is much better and the shiny shiny bright bits have gone.
shadow is much much softer it hasn't got such a hard black edge to it.
The light on Robyn herself looks much much nice too,
it's a softer much more wrap a rounding kind of light.
the best thing you can do it
and in a situation like this is actually take the diffuser right off
and bounce the light
bounce it off the ceiling, so rest the little catch
and point the flash straight up in the air like that
Nearly all
dedicated flash guns will have an extra
little diffuser in here too, it's a wide dangled diffuser.
If you see this little thing i'm dropping down
it shatters the light out down the sides of it,
And this little card which hide in the back there of the flash gun, that will reflect a little bit of light forwards at the subject.
So let's take the Robyn shot one more time,
very stylish.
But look, isn't that nice light, there is no shadow behind her at all, that's because the light
is hitting the ceiling and it is
spreading out and then
it is reflecting back down, it's like a very fine misty rain, and it's coming down
behind Robyn as well as in front of her so there is no shadow at all.
When you're going to bounce light be careful as to what colour you're bouncing
it off, for example you could bounce it off the wall
there's a wall there i could bounce it off that,
but if that wall was green
i'd get green light coming back again and Robyn would look like she's feeling very ill.
if you have a green ceiling and white wall, go for
the wall and not the ceiling because the same thing will happen.
You've got to be a little bit careful with that.
you can usually correct those colours afterwards in a computer but it makes life easier if you can get it the right colour in the first place.
Now just looking back at that last shot of Rob,
it's very very nice however i say it's just a little tad dark.
I can brighten that up fairly easily.
by pressing the selector here, you've got power control,
if i press that selector
and dial it up a bit, i'm going to go to plus one
that's going to double the amount of brightness.
Let's just put my reflector and bounce back to where it was because i was fiddling
Take that shot again, there we go, look that's just brightened the shot up that little bit.
it's made it that little bit brighter and nicer.
if you have a similar problem with your on camera flash
you can tell the camera what to do with that too,
by pressing the little button here, which pops the flash up
and turning, depends on the make of your camera,
because everything's different on this one i
rotate the wheel at the
back i think it is, there we go.
You can tell the flash to be brighter or darker.
it's just the same with the dedicated
now flash has a limit to how far it
can reach
a room like this is great,
but say you're at a concert and want to photograph someone up on the stage
and the flashes are going of around wembley stadium all the time when you see it on telly.
flash cant possibly cover that distance no matter
how good a flash gun you buy, it won't reach across wembley stadium
You're much better off to turn the flash off and increase your iso
but this films about flash so i'm not going into that right now.
in this kind of situation
with friends having dinner, bouncing your flash of the wall or
ceiling or something like that is definitely your best bet.
In these circumstances
these techniques I've just shown you will work really really well you'll get some great pictures
of your family and friends