The Secret To Good Flash Photography

Fr0dders

Fr0dders

Fr0dders

Caporegime
Joined
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West Yorks
Quick question, one of my pet hates with my P+S is that when you up the ISO, the noise gets worse. So to take photos indoors with no natural light you need to use the flash. Now, with a P+S flash photography usually ends up the same way - everything in the background completely black, and the subject lit up like a Christmas tree, with the light so bright their skin becomes almost white instead of its normal tone.

Is there any way of avoiding this on a DSLR ?

I was thinking of maybe a 430 EX ? Or is the only way to good really good flash photogrpahy to use studio lights ?
 
The tricks/principles are the same, you can still get the background lit with a p&s.

Shoot in Tv instead, make it 1/15th, it will force the shutter to open up longer.

Dlsr is the same, except now you can point the flash any direction you want or use bounce cards, Tupperware etc to diffuse it.
 
I use a 430 EXII, I tend to bounce the flash and also use manual mode on the camera. I set the aperture to the required amount and the shutter speed to 1/125. I'll then use flash exposure compensation to adjust as needed. Not the greatest pic to illustrate, but this was with flash indoors (and ambient natural light):



Flash exposure compensation of 1.333333333
 
Direct light from a flash always makes the skin tones look white/blue. You can get around this by using a wireless flash ( or multiples ) so that the flash can be placed at a different angle to the subject, or with modifiers ( devices used to alter the quality of light, colour etc eg. softboxes and filters ). As Raymond has mentioned, you can also bounce the light coming from the flash off the ceiling or walls to diffuse it and get a less harsh effect on your subject. For this you don't need to have a flash that can be detached from the camera and used wirelessly, but it helps ! It must be capable obviously of tilting so that you can direct the flash output on to the ceiling etc.

Last thing you can do is to play around with white balance in post-processing. Flash light gives a "cold" blue-ish look. You can try warming up the tones ...
 
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Rojin said:
I use a 430 EXII, I tend to bounce the flash and also use manual mode on the camera. I set the aperture to the required amount and the shutter speed to 1/125. I'll then use flash exposure compensation to adjust as needed. Not the greatest pic to illustrate, but this was with flash indoors (and ambient natural light):

Flash exposure compensation of 1.333333333
Click to expand...

thats exactly the type of photo i was referring to.

Definately going to get a 430 EX from the bay then. Should be able to bounce the flash off the ceiling to make it nice and soft.
 
Bouncing it off the ceiling is fine, just make sure there's enough light going forward too (like using an Stofen Omni bounce) otherwise you'll get dark eye socket shadows, especially if your subject has deeper eye sockets :)
 
I remember when I first got my flash, I couldn't believe the difference it made.

Bouncing the flash is the way forward :)
 
Phate said:
I remember when I first got my flash, I couldn't believe the difference it made.

Bouncing the flash is the way forward :)
Click to expand...

really looking forward to it.

Love your work with the 40D, its what inspired me to get one. Currently saving up my pennies :D
 
430EXII?

Bah, I'm still using the mkI but at least I only paid £120 for it brand new way back when it was new :D

Bouncing is the way!

Sooner or later you'll end up with wireless RF triggers and then you're in a whole new world of flashing :D
 
i'll probably get an EX I 2nd hand off the bay. will be my first DSLR so i'm not going to go mad just yet (i bet they all say that :D )
 
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