Registered: January 2006 Location: Boston, USA Posts: 410
To show how dramatic a fill-in flash can change the look of a portrait, I've taken these 3 images straight out of the camera, on aperture priority and auto white balance - I only used photoshop for downsampling.
A- No flash, sun in photographer's back. Nice skin tones, dark shadows, uncomfortably bright for the model (can you tell?).
B- No flash, photographed towards the sun. Better shadow detail, more relaxing for model. Skin tones cool, here exacerbated by the reflecting blue pool.
C- Fill-in flash, photographed towards the sun. Skin tones natural again, soft shadows.
I mostly use an external flash with a small softbox, mounted on the hotshoe. The pop-up flash works very well, tough, too. Depending on how bright the day is, I turn down the flash to between -2 and -1 FEC (flash exposure compensation).
I can now use photoshop to recuperate detail in the hair in C (I shot in Raw+jpeg, it's not blown in Raw) and darken the sky a bit more. I would probably also add a touch of warmth to the skin.
ˇ Date: Tue October 10, 2006 ˇ Views: 3545 ˇ Filesize: 176.2kb ˇ Dimensions: 750 x 700 ˇ
Registered: January 2006 Location: Boston, USA Posts: 410
Tue October 10, 2006 1:14pm
Thanks Gary.
Stefanie
Kevin Sadler Senior Member
Registered: May 2004 Location: Southern California Posts: 425
Tue October 10, 2006 3:49pm
great post and good explanation. fill flash also adds that little catchlight to bring some life to the eyes. in addition, now that you have two light sources (the sun and the flash), and therefore two metering points (ambient and flash), you can EC down (maybe -1.0-2.0) the sky to a deeper blue without affecting the exposure on your subject's face. it will also get some of the blown out hair back. it's an old trick that makes a nice effect in the camera. really nice job. later, kevin
steffit Senior Member
Registered: January 2006 Location: Boston, USA Posts: 410
Wed October 11, 2006 4:06am
Good points, Kevin! This can change the general feel of the picture, too, from a 'barely noticeable' flash (except for the catchlight giveaway) to a more dramatic 'model shoot' type photo.
I should also mention that in very bright conditions, you might have a problem with flash synchronizing times. For example, on my camera (350D) the flash synchronizing time is 1/200th of a second. With a wide open aperture, you'll easily need shorter times. (Just look at the EXIF above, which are from photo A - 1/640th second and f 6.3). It's a bit better in the shade, of course, but you might need to either turn down the f-stop and keep an eye on the times or use shutter priority.
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