Tuesday, March 23, 2010

12 Weeks to Better Photography- Week Four


Can I be honest for a second? If I were not hosting this 12 Weeks to better Photography extravaganza, I probably would have skipped this week's lesson. Why? It is about the flash, and I *hate* the flash. I just don't use it very often at all. And if I do use it, I often implore little tricks to make the flash look less harsh. For example, did you know that you can put your finger just above the pop-up flash to prevent it from popping up all the way, thus giving you a less harsh flash effect? Justin figured that one out. Granted, Canon would probably say that doing this would break my internal flash. But I don't care if it breaks, because I hate it.

Anyway, if you really need to use a flash and can't afford an external one (lord knows that I can't!), I would recommend checking out the Lightscoop. No, this is not a paid advertisement, and no, I didn't receive one for writing about it. It's just a product that I've used on my own accord, and think is a high quality solution.

Now, on to the pictures. For this week, I chose option two, which was to use the fill flash to eliminate shadows on the face on a bright day.

First up, no flash:

Have I mentioned that my child hates the sun? She certainly didn't inherit that trait from me!

Now, with a flash:

Honestly, I like picture one much better. Even if there are shadows on her face...because, um, shadows exist in real life. I don't like the second picture at all, and it was far and away the best of the "flash" shots. Maybe I need to try one of the other suggestions for using flash...

How did you all do this week?

7 comments:

  1. I haven't done mine yet but yours turned out great! I am not a giant fan of the harshness of a flash either, but our house is SO dark that I use it almost all of the time.

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  2. I'm with you... Now that we have the slr, I try to avoid flash. My hubby got an external one for Christmas, and if I use flash inside I use that one because I can turn it to bounce off the ceiling to help with harshness and shadows.

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  3. You already know I hate the flash from last weeks lesson!

    Didn't really like this lesson too much. I'm uploading my pictures right now!

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  4. Yep. I'm a flash hater too. I can never make it work right. I'm sure if I had the right tools, it would be better, but definitely not in the cards financially. The lightscoop looks really great. I may also try some of those tips to sort of diffuse the flash.

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  5. Yeah, the first pic is definitely the best. As you say, shadows exist in real life.

    Alas, my camera is too ghetto for a Flashscoop. Then again, I tend to take pictures of buildings and landscapes, not people. People are so boring. Hehe.

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  6. I agree that sometimes shadows are important! That being said, I'd never heard of using a flash outdoors before and I can certainly think of situations where it might be helpful (like when someone is completely shadowed by a building or something...)

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  7. It looks like I might just be getting farther and farther behind on this. Lack of computer from home and thus ability to upload pictures has really taken a toll on my blogging habits. :(

    Hopefully I'll be back sometime soon.

    ReplyDelete

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