Flash Photography160 articles

As photographers we spend a lot of time playing with light. Light is our medium, we talk about its color, its quality, its size and its softness. And a lot of our talk is about how to change it. One of the first things that a novice photographer tires of and wants to change is the boring, flat light that their camera flash produces. While there are any number of devices that can filter or shape light one of the biggest groups of light changers are the remote flash triggers. At the most basic level one of the fastest ways to change flash light from flat and boring is to move its position. Once the flash is moved off of the top of our camera it loses the vital connections required to make it fire.

Power, expressed in Guide Number (GN), is a measure of how much light the flash will produce. GN is a non-standard unit of measure. It basically tells you how far away a subject can be from the source of the flash, where the flash is the primary light source, and the subject to still be properly lit. The problem with this is that the distance can be expressed in either feet or meters. There is often no way of knowing which it is. GN also assumes ISO100 and f1.0 so adjustments will have to be made in the calculations to account for real-world conditions. For instance, f1.0 lenses are very rare and extremely expensive.

A night-time photo shoot often presents a problem or two, especially when including an element of interest in the background such as architecture. In most cases a tripod or some other method of stabilizing the camera will be necessary due to the slow shutter speeds used with low-light photography. But even with a tripod, our subject needs to remain somewhat statuesque to prevent blurring. If you’ve ever tried portraits at night, you’ll know that getting clean sharp shots is almost impossible when there’s any kind of movement.

Edward Verosky has just released an eBook aimed to make photographers more confident in all flash photography situations. Flash photography is definitely a tricky subject, I know that I have been one to panic at dimly lighted events when people are depending on me to capture great photos. This new book is called 100% Reliable Flash Photography and is all about gaining the skill and confidence you need to create great images with the most basic and available lighting sources.

There are 4 main lighting techniques you can use in the field; these are ambient dominant, flash dominant, balanced flash and fill flash. Flash photography is essential to learn if you take photos in outdoor environments, particularly if you photograph people. The existing lighting is never perfect so you have to modify it to suit your requirements. Here are 4 essential basics to help you get more out of your flash.

The built-in flash on a digital camera is compact, simple to use, and often effective in providing the extra illumination needed to assure adequate exposure of a subject when ambient light is insufficient. In some instances, the internal flash is able to soften shadows in harsh light as well.

The light from even a small flash is as powerful as the sun but, given that it’s only source of energy is a small battery, it can only produce this amount of light for an extremely small period of time – less than 1/1000th of a second.

I’ve written this article so that you are clear about the importance of power in relation to flash. When I was just starting out, I asked a wedding photographer I knew what sort of flash I should buy. His answer? “The most powerful one you can afford”.

Professional photographers rely on the flash on their camera to capture the action at a wedding or other social event. They are probably not aware of the effect of their flash on the faces of their subject. Here is an analysis of the effect of different distances between the flash head and the lens.

Flash is usually used in lower light conditions. As the light drops, the chances of blurred images increases. Flash will overcome this problem, but cause others.