Question about flashes

Smith

Hi there,

I was wondering, should I buy a mounted flash? Because I've never had one or used one before, as I'm so much used to taking photos without flash that I think they look good enough. What are the flashes best used for, is it recommended to buy one?

Thanks a lot!

Art Scott

A flash is the one light source you can truly control....you have control over the angle, the amount of light (output), the direction from which it comes.......you can control every aspect of it......
Room lights....you have no control over.....the sun you cannot really control, you can work with it with reflectors and huge diffusers, tents, the shade, etc,etc,etc........

So a flash can be used as a sole light source or it can be used as a fill light source to get rid of unwanted shadows or to more those shadows around to make a photo more pleasing.............

Are they necessary........NO.....you can use reflectors to get light where yu want it.....a lot of times that means at least 1 or more assistants...........

Can they make life a lot more easy on you.....yes......
Some of us own 1......a lot of us own several flash units (hotshoe style or handle mount style) aside from the ones we own that are for studio use.......

Even some wildlife photogs use flash to brighten their subjects.....a lot of them use an adapter that attaches to the flash called a Better Beamer (I thought it was a new kind of BMW when I first heard of it:D} to make the flash have a longert usable distance...but that is another thread possibly.................

ziggy53

Smith wrote:

Hi there,

I was wondering, should I buy a mounted flash? Because I've never had one or used one before, as I'm so much used to taking photos without flash that I think they look good enough. What are the flashes best used for, is it recommended to buy one?

Thanks a lot!

Smith, welcome to the Digital Grin.

I use an external flash a lot for indoor work, both for the main light ("key" light) and for fill lighting to fill in shadow areas especially when there is too much contrast for the image to look "normal" or when there is too much dynamic range for the sensor to handle.

A big part of photography is the use and control of light.

Alternately some folks use a reflector for fill light to help control the shadows.

Another reason to use an external flash is to provide enough light to fill a "modifier", which is often either a reflection diffuser or transmissive diffuser. These modifier devices are often used to soften the shadows of the key light,

Ideally, if you use an external flash for the key light you may even want to position the light away from the lens axis.

Check out our "Techniques" forum for much more information on the use of an external flash, but feel free to ask here about particular models of flash.

Smith

Thanks for the welcome.

Well, it seems that I can control the light through the aperture, or lenses. Um, if flash is used, doesn't it produce a fake (artificial) light? Because without flash, a natural light is produced, correct? Do flashes produce a sharper image as well? Perhaps I should rent it and try it and see how it goes. Thanks for the replies.

Toshido

Aperture shutter speed and ISO control aperture, not light.

What the guys above are talking about is not necessarily the amount of light, but where the light is. Or more importantly at times, where the shadows are.

I myself am just starting to use flash outdoors as a fill light to cut down or eliminate harsh shadows on peoples faces.

Smith

Ok yeah that's what I mean, sorry I forgot.

I agree, I think it's best used for outdoors, as it seems. I guess that it depends on whether you prefer the shadows or not. Thanks, guys.

ziggy53

Smith wrote:

Ok yeah that's what I mean, sorry I forgot.

I agree, I think it's best used for outdoors, as it seems. I guess that it depends on whether you prefer the shadows or not. Thanks, guys.

Shadows are an important part of providing depth and dimension in an image. Without appropriate shadows a subject may look flat and uninviting. It is the control of light, the direction and amount, that you seek, whether natural/ambient or from a flash. Done properly flash lighting will enhance an image and you may not even know that a flash was used.

If it is too obvious that a flash was used it just looks amateurish and like a snapshot.

A reflector can also be used to help fill shadows to provide a more satisfactory ratio between the key light and the fill light.

Key and fill are also terms used for natural lighting, so lighting control is also appropriate to daylight/outdoor photography. Check out the following simple explanation of lighting terms and see the paragraph "Lighting choices".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_light

Now Google for the terms:

Key light
Fill light
Hair light (also rim light)
Rembrandt lighting setup
Tree-point lighting setup
Butterfly lighting setup

That should get you started in an introduction to the control of light.

Cygnus Studios

Photography is all about light. Photographers use each and every tool for manipulating that light to suit our purposes.
There are many tools available. The flash is just one of them. It can make your life a lot easier in some circumstances. It is for those times where the available light is not enough, and the full range of studio lights are too much.

Qarik

if you rent a flash and don't know how to use it..you will not like the results and maybe discouraged into buying one.

In the end if you have a DSLR and go beyond "auto" mode..you definitely need a shoe mount flash. There is simply no question.

Tim Kamppinen

I use flash all the time. Your camera controls like shutter speed, aperture, and ISO only adjust the exposure of your shot. You cannot use them to put light where you want it to be. With a flash you can do just that. Think of looking at someone on a sunny day with the sun behind them. Their face is in shadow. You can see the detail in the face and the background just fine, but your camera cannot capture such a broad range of light as your eyes can, so you have to either choose to expose their face correctly, and have the background blow out and go pure white, or to expose the background correctly and have their face be a black hole. With a flash, however, you can light the face to bring it closer to the light level of the background and thereby capture the whole scene much closer to the way your eyes saw it. It's definitely "artificial" in the sense of being man-made and manipulated by you, but if it's done right the results will look totally natural and pleasing.

That's just one way of using flash, and it's typically refered to as "fill flash". There are thousands of ways that you could incorporate flash into your images, from balancing it with the ambient light to lighting your entire photograph with only light from the flash. You can use it to create mood in your images. Look at my avatar. That was shot with one bare flash to the camera right of my face. I used a flash to get the light I want and create a certain mood. If I had taken the same photograph with the available light in the room I was in, it would look completely different and not at all like what I set out to create. Knowing how to use a flash to light your images gives you more creative control over the final product, so that you can create photos that look the way you want them to rather than having to just "grab" whatever the available light tosses your way. This is a very good thing. Of course you don't have to use it all the time, but it's another tool that you can use.

Two great sites that you will surely find helpful in learning about flash photography are http://www.planetneil.com/tangents and http://www.strobist.com . The first is all about using on-camera flash and the second is all about using off-camera flash. Read and learn! I've benefitted greatly from the information on these websites. Of particular interest is the "Lighting 101" series on the strobist site, linked to on the right of the page.

kozyavka

Ya I would suggest you to but one of those! A flash can be used as a sole light to get rid of unwanted shadows. I am currently using one of those…so go ahead!