A Study on Flash

A Study on Flash

Like I posted earlier, I've been trying to learn how to use my flash effectively. I'll be going to Europe in a few weeks, and I want to be able to use my on-board flash in low light without having my pictures come out...well..."flashy."

The other evening when Mom and I were waiting on the bats (see "Panning" below), I twisted around and quickly metered and shot a snap of my mom (top, left above). The meter apparently favored the light coming from behind her through the window, and her face turned out dark in comparison. "No matter," said I as I slowed the shutter speed down by a stop and shot again (top, right). Although the tones in her face look good, the background is way overexposed, as was expected.

"Well," I thought, "this may be a good time to pop up the flash and give it a whirl." In this situation I would be using the flash as the main source of light as I try to balance it with ambient. Based on the advice given by Strobist.com as a good starting point, I stopped down by two stops, then turned the flash compensation down by 1.5 EV (bottom, left). We're getting closer. The values are more balanced--nothing is terribly over- or underexposed--but it has that dreaded "flashy" look; the tones are cold and very flat. It has an almost sickly feel to it. Being as close to her as I was (I was in the passenger's seat), I thought I'd turn the flash down another stop and see what happens. Bingo! The tones are much more balanced, detail can be seen in the subject and background, my mom doesn't look ill, and everybody's happy (bottom, right).

None of these are good pictures. The composition is not all that interesting, and Mom looks like she is about to fall asleep. I tried to keep post-processing to a minimum in order maximize the differences between the four images. I probably could have tweaked the flash and exposure settings more and gotten an even better shot. At the time, I was so overwhelmed by the vast differences between the images I just wanted to see them on a larger screen immediately, and didn't think to keep messing with it. Still, as an exercise I think it was quite instructive to ignore all the other variables (composition, post, etc) and focus on the one I'm trying to learn: flash.

So, what did I learn? Well for starters I learned that it is possible to non-flashy images with a flash, it just takes some effort. That's important, because up till now I thought that my lack of skill combined with my dinky little on-camera flash (which gets a really bad wrap in photography circles) would mean that good shots in low light were just impossible. Now I think my flash has some potential that I need to squeeze out before I squeeze $185 out of my wallet on new one. I also learned that the tip I got from Strobist works: when using flash as the main light source, underexpose by a couple of stops and dial the flash down 1.5 to 2.5 stops. And finally, I learned that camera-to-subject distance has a huge effect on the necessary flash output. Sitting this close to the subject -2.5 EV was plenty of light; had I been further away, it may not have.