Lessons
Lesson Info
Tip 2: Don't Be a Flasher!
So here we are with tip number two don't be a flasher unless, of course, you have a good reason to so let's talk about flash a little bit. There are times when you really need it, of course. So here is an example of my husband on a mountain, and he is basically in the shade. So in this photo, he is appearing quite dark because it turns out that the background was so bright it tricked the flash into not firing. Um and this is a situation where you'd want to turn on your fill flash, right? So I like to call it forced flash, because that's, what you're really doing is you're forcing the flash to fire even though the camera thanks, it probably doesn't need it. You are forcing it to fire. So here is another frame where you can see the flash actually reflecting in his glasses, but the background is the same as it was before. So the flash is not gonna light up the whole mountain. Believe it or not, you can believe it. Flashes just aren't that powerful, but it will reach out and light him up t...
o brighten him up to match with the background so that's an example of where flash is really handy and it can be a great tool, but a lot of times people don't use it really as needed they sort of just use it because it's there and it can actually paradoxically make your images appear darker. So here is an example of a photo that's just frightening doesn't look very blair witch project something so this poor little victim here is laying on on her sister's bed in a bedroom where this would like it ten or eleven in the morning, but you'd never know right? It looks like she was woken up at night and just blasted with this flash, but there was actually an abundance of light in this room, but because the flash fired, it ends up changing the exposure settings within the camera so that it's calibrating the exposure for the flash on her and it's not taking into account any of the ambient light and then ends up looking like your subject is in a cave. So here is the same scene photographed with no flash that's a huge big difference here's another example this my my cat murky, so we thought I'm cutting another segment this is murky and this was also taken with this with my phone just the other day just to make a point so this was taken during broad daylight there is a huge window right here to the side but the flash lights her up and makes the entire rest of the room look really dark but here's proof that it's daylight you can see out the bathroom window way over there ok, so daylight here is the same scene with my phone with no flash is not wild it's paradoxical and people just don't internalized that because we think we're making it brighter with the flash but not always and not in the ways that you always think here's the perfect example of where you'd want to turn the flash off this is the nutcracker it was a rehearsal that's why there's only two people in the audience there the directors but we see this scene was captured with the camera and auto mode where the flashes going to fire cause here in the dark theater but what you really end up getting is a crappy staged photo and to really great exposures of their head right in front of you right nobody needs to see that if we take the same scene and we canceled the flash not only do the head not show up so much but the color balance is actually better for the stage as well because the flash is going to be changing your color balance too so that's a big tip is really just turning off your flash unless you actually need it here's some creative uses of not using flash so there's my husband again he is such a good model he always ends up in all my demonstrations so here he is downtown chicago in front of us fountain and this wait with flash obviously it's dark out I had a little point in two with me we put it in auto and I just took the heinous, horrible picture and it's just this is what people end up with a lot of times when they're they're not really like conscious of what they're doing it's just like pointing and shooting right? So I pointed and shocked and I got this now here is the same scene with no flash and I used the timer on my camera and then I jumped in it too it's not just some random woman that would mean so then I was able to use be found to back light us and we got this really cool silhouette and this was taken with a really old super cheap no bells and whistles point shoot so you don't have to have some big fancy camera you just have to know how to use it and oftentimes that can mean turning off the flash here's one more scene this was down in the caribbean and I was trying forever to photograph this a little boy that had been playing on the beat and he was just really fast this I was shot this also with a point and shoot camera so you know, there's, a little bit of a delay with the shutter it's, not like a dslr. So the timing was really tricky and I kept missing him, and then I could tell he was going home. It must have been about dinner time, and it was like going to be my last chance, and I couldn't risk the flash screwing up this exposure, so I made sure to cancel it, and then I was able to catch this on his way home, and I think it's because he was so tired from kicking the ball around, he was slow working on. I finally got him, but you can get great things when you just turn off that flash. So I actually operate with my flash, just cancelled all the time, unless I actually need or want it. Then I'm choosing to use the flash very purposefully rather than fell upon auto. Just leave it right because it actually, I think, ruins a bunch of images.
Ratings and Reviews
Elad
Short, very basic, very general and non-technical. Can't say anything presented helped or impressed me, but new comers might find it interesting.
1claud9
She simply makes sense. I like learning tips from Khara.
MARGARET NICOSIA
I think her ideas were simple to follow and to consider before going out to shoot. No ah-ha moments for me....nice that the ideas are short and to the point. thanks