
The most significant clues come from how light or dark the shadows are overall, with darker shadows making the object casting them seem higher and sharper-edged than those with lighter ones.Ĭonventional wisdom is that light modifier size and distance control diffusion and how soft the lighting is. Here are some of the basic options worth considering."Soft" and "Hard" attributes of lighting are actually perceptual interpretation made by the brain of the viewer based on clues in the photograph. If you really want to immediately improve your flash photography studio style light modifiers are a necessity. Light from a bare flashgun is ‘hard’ by its nature, and this means it’s harsh and produces strong shadows and contrast. Light modifiers are used to control the behaviour of light, which means diffusing the light – making it softer and controlling the way it spreads from the light source and reaches the subject. A more advanced technique is off-camera flash, which is where flashguns are used in the same way as studio flash and often involves light modifiers to create lighting effects. The reasons for doing either of these things is to soften light and reduce shadows, and to move away from the obvious characteristics produced by on-camera flash. This ultimately means that you can illuminate subjects that are further away, and still achieve desired aperture settings when using light modifiers that can reduce the amount of light reaching subjects by sometimes up to two stops.Īnother advantage of a flashgun is that the head pans and tilts, which means you can aim it up to bounce light off the ceiling to soften itĪnother advantage of a flashgun is that the head pans and tilts, which means you can aim it up to bounce light off the ceiling to soften it, or turn the head so the light bounces off a wall or reflector.
#Flashh photography reflector upgrade#
The first and most obvious upgrade reason would be to enjoy more power output, which of course means more light. Some people will say that you can modify pop-up flash, and you can certainly soften it.īut beyond this, you really would want to upgrade to an external flashgun. Namely that their power output is limited and it's nearly impossible to modify the light produced from them. If you find yourself using flash regularly, you'll quickly discover the limitations of pop-up flash. You may also need to use flash exposure compensation to adjust exposure. For this technique, it’s often best to shoot in aperture-priority with the flash in TTL mode. When shooting outdoors and the sun is casting shadows on to your subject, fill-in flash is a technique used to fill the shadows with flash light to remove them and obtain an even exposure. Flash exposure compensation can be set in 1/3 stop increments.

1.0, and if it’s too dark set it to overexpose eg. If the shot is too light set the flash exposure compensation to underexpose eg. This purely comes down to the metering and the tones present in the scene. When shooting with the flash in TTL mode it’s possible that the power output will be set incorrectly. It can also be used to control the spread of light from the flash. Another flash control you can manually set is zoom, and this relates to the focal length of the lens in use.
#Flashh photography reflector manual#
Most often, you would use manual flash with the camera set to manual exposure mode. Manual flash is where you manually set the power output of the flash according to the camera settings and desired effect. Although for the latter you have to make sure the camera settings are appropriate for the ambient light and effect you wish to achieve.

This will work in aperture-priority, shutter-priority and even when the camera is set to manual mode. Through The Lens (TTL) flash simply means the flash will meter the scene as usual and adjust flash power output for a correct exposure. Here are some of the basic techniques and settings you need to know when using both pop-up flash or a flashgun: Through The Lens (TTL) These are great for lighting group shoots at parties, and adding fill light on bright sunny days, but for serious flash photography a flashgun is a necessity. As the name suggests, it simply pops up when activated.

Pop-up flash is the most basic type of flash, and this is simply the small flash that’s built into your camera.
