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Competition - post a photo you've taken of nature >>

Flash or no flash...?

That is the question.

Discuss...!
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Nuffles
19
Haha it's nowhere near that simple! What kind of shot are you after?

Sometimes flash ruins the ambiance of a shot. You want natural light (or the ambient light in which your shooting) to set out the mood of the shot.





Sometimes using a flash in these instances, especially when you haven't got enough lights (multiple flashes, off camera) really flattens the image and makes it way less interesting like this:



If you balance your flash with the ambient light, however, you can find a point at which the flash compliments the available light:



You can also use flash to push the boundaries of what you can normally do, especially in low light:



Not to mention you can use flashes in unconventional ways. This was shot using a long exposure and using the flash hand-held to 'paint' the tree from different angles where the foreground was otherwise in complete darkness:

Townhill Campus by SunDustPhotos, on Flickr

When I was younger I used to hate using flash, mainly because the only flash I had at my disposal was the pop-up on camera flash. They're horrible little things. When you get a flashgun, however, a lot of different methods of shooting open up to you and it then becomes a decision about whether flash will fit with the theme of what you're shooting, whether it is necessary or not, and the best way to implement it - be it long shutter speed or short, be it on camera facing the subject, on camera but bounced, off camera tethered, or off camera free triggering.
(edited 9 years ago)

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