Project 61: Making the Best Use of Built-in Flash

The objective of this project was to practice using my flash against a wide variety of subjects, as well as indoors and outdoors. My key learning outcome from this was to work out how to vary the power output of the flash - it was one of those Eureka moments where you wish you had known earlier as it would have saved so many overexposed disasters. I attach here some of my results, as well as some success stories with flash from my archives. One of the many advantages of digital photography is the speeding up of the learning process - metadata allows you to look back at earlier photos and see exactly what you did (flash on/off etc.). My photo of the butterfly was simply taken with pop up flash on the camera - "professional" cameras don't even have pop up flash, and yet there are some occasions when it is handy just to have it there - the butterfly was a classic example. If I'd gone inside to retrieve my flashgun, the butterfly would have gone when I came back or moved into a lesser position. The flash was useful for lighting the butterfly and blowing out the detail on the background (a whitewashed wall).

One other learning tip I've heard, but not yet had a chance to try, is the use of an orange "gel" over the top of the flash when taking photos as sunset. I have used my flashgun in those situations and found that the mismatch between the daylight balance of the flash against the warm evening light looks false. I hope to put that into practice next week if we get some nice sunsets and will upload the results if successful. UPDATE - SUCCESS!! My final picture for assignment 4.


I am fortunate in that I rarely experience "red eye" in my photographs. I am always slightly surprised at how many people don't correct red eye for framed pictures/photobooks when it can even be corrected in default & free software nowadays. Perhaps they are so used to seeing it in snapshots that it doesn't occur to them that there is another way! Perhaps I am becoming a photographic snob - I quite often find myself mentally correcting other people's photographs.

Low ceilings vs high ceilings - why is that high ceilings are so sought after in all those property programmes and in magazines? Yes they might be a period feature but they make rooms so much harder to heat (I still shiver when I think of my cold damp Victorian student bedroom) and give a cold atmosphere rather than a cosy, homely low ceiling (think of a cosy timber beamed cottage). They are so much harder to paint and de-cobweb. But most of all, low ceilings prevent light fall off when used for bouncing flash indoors - allowing shots to be captured indoors where they might otherwise be missed or cursed with harsh direct flash. I'd have low ceilings any day, and would include them in my wish list for a property (if I was thinking of moving house, which I'm not, because I am blessed with aforementioned low ceilings).

The final thing I want to say about flash is that it remains my only photographic "light". After completing the "Artificial light" section of the course, I have been severely tempted to invest in x, y and z lighting equipment. It is frustrating when reading photography lighting books that they always seem to have another bit of photographic lighting equipment in the "menu". Examples include strip lights, massive softboxes, portable softboxes (still very expensive), diffusers with built in handles, plexiglass backgrounds etc. etc. Scott Kelby's book was particularly disappointing as his first volume seemed to say that you could do a lot just using a shower curtain against a window. His next 2 books then seem to have a new bit of equipment on every page. If you want to photograph a pineapple you need this bit of lighting equipment, if you want to photograph a bottle you need this, if you want to photograph a child you need that. Another expert then bangs on about a different bit of equipment for the same thing. It all gets so confusing that I feel like not bothering - apart from the expense I would also need to build an extension to store it all. I have also come to the conclusion that my continuous tungsten light is useless because it's too hot to do anything with. I can't afford a master speedlite for my Canon and can therefore only have 1 off camera flash. So my kit of photographic lighting consists simply of a flashgun, torch & reflector! I guess I need to master those 3 to get the best out of them.