Good lighting makes a huge difference in photography. When taking pictures in less-than-ideal light, you might find yourself wanting to add some light to the scene to help out the photo. The most common way of doing this is with the flash that’s built into your digital camera. While this is certainly not a terrible thing to do, a lot of photographers don’t realise the full potential of flashes of this type... there are literally endless amounts of things you can do with a flash!There is one relatively minor, yet critically important, change you must make to your flash to begin unlocking its lighting potential, however. You must move the flash away from your camera. This means you should have an external flash unit, and some way to tell it to fire when you need it to when it’s not attached to the top of your camera.
Lately, I’ve been shooting lots of photos with off-camera flashes. There are lots of benefits to moving your flash away from the axis of your lens (your camera) instead of thinking of it as only a way to add light to a dark scene. You can add contrast and depth to a scene, you can create drama and excitement, you can supplement existing light to make subjects pop, you can add three-dimensional quality to a subject, and the list goes on and on and on! Flashes can be used in ways very similar to large studio lights used in professional photo studios, but they’re small, lightweight, portable, and relatively cheap! When you don’t think of a flash as simply a way to add light to a dark scene and begin to think of it as a flexible light in a photo studio setup, worlds begin to open up.
A flash, or strobe as it is often called, is a light source that only lights up when it is needed: when a photo is being exposed. Flashes contain a flash bulb, a capacitor bank, and batteries (usually 4 AAs.) While the flash is on, the batteries work constantly to keep the capacitor bank charged, and when a flash is called for, the bulb takes power from the capacitor bank. Flash durations are very short, usually between 1/1000th of a second and 1/30,000th of a second, depending on the power level.
Flashes can be used along with a variety of light modifiers, (umbrellas, dishes, gels, reflectors, diffusers, etc.) to give you the photographer control over the direction, brightness, quality, color, and overall look of the light in a photo. This control over light enables you to change the appearance of a photo in ways you’ve never thought possible. I’ve been doing this for a while now and I’m always learning new things to do with my light!
I’ll get more into specifics of how to use flashes in this manner another day. Now, here are some tricks you can do with the camera you already have!
You might have noticed that a direct on-camera flash often gives a harsh, unattractive look to a photo of a person. In general, it’s better to diffuse your flash to get a softer, less deer-in-the-headlights look in your flash pictures. Try to modify your flash so the part that emits light looks bigger.
-If you have a point-and-shoot camera, put a loop of clear scotch tape across the flash, so the strip of tape is held 1-2 inches away from the flash bulb.
-If you use your DSLR’s pop-up flash, cut a hole in the bottom of a styrofoam cup and slide it over the flash so the side of the cup covers the flash bulb. The cup should be pointed forward and up.
-If you have an external flash unit, look for white or grey ceilings or walls to bounce light off of. Turn the flash head so it points at the ceiling instead of directly at the subject.
-Try and think of different ways to bounce, reflect, diffuse or enlarge your light source for softer, more natural looking flash light. Your photos will really show a difference!
The photo at the top of this post was shot in a dark room at night with a single flash on the ground to the right of the camera, pointing up at my friends and I.
Keep on shooting!
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