Using a camera flash is an inevitable part of being a photographer, especially since photography is mainly concerned with light. But to gain more confidence in using your built-in and detachable camera flash when taking pictures, one must first understand its many uses.
Contrary to what many beginners think, flash is not only used to brighten a nearby scene or subject. It can also set the mood, add emphasis to image elements, and create special effects in your photograph, making flash photography fun and extremely useful for photographers.
In this article, we’ll show you the many ways flash techniques can improve your images, as well how you can execute them.
How does a flash work?
The flash in flash photography is a simple, speedy, and powerful mechanism. It creates quick light bursts that illuminate for a fraction of a second (typically around 1/200 to 1/1000 of a second). This light bursts based on the camera’s shutter. It’s designed to flash the entire time the image is being taken for full scene illumination.
Flash Photography Tips
Becoming a skilled photographer involves being able to shoot in virtually any kind of shooting scenario with varying lighting conditions, hence the need for knowledge and experience in flash photography.
Below we’ve listed a few widely-used flash photography techniques that you may have already heard about and tried. You can use your camera’s built-in flash for some of these, but for more freedom and creative control, you’ll need to use an external shoe mount flash for these tips.
- Bounce the Light
- Diffuse Your Flash
- Make Use of Ambient Light
- Use Colored Flash Gels
- Use TTL Technology
- Enable High-Speed Flash Sync
- Use More Than One Flash
Bounce the Light
One of the first and most important things that aspiring photographers need to learn about flash photography is that pointing the flash directly towards your subject is a no-no. After all, nobody wants to see harsh, flat lighting and unsightly shadows in their photos.
The key to creating better lighting is to bounce the flash against another surface. This means firing your flash elsewhere—like a neutral-colored wall, ceiling, or a reflective card on your flash—to create a bigger light source and soften the light that will hit your subject.
Bonus Tip: While bouncing light, flag your flash with a small piece of black foam or any opaque material to block one side of your perpendicular flash head and keep all direct light from hitting your subject.
Diffuse Your Flash
Another technique for creating more attractive lighting is to diffuse the light that comes from your flash. Like bouncing it, using a diffuser enlarges the size of the flash area to create softer, more even light.
There are pop-up flash diffusers and there are also tupperware-looking diffusers for professional speedlights, both optimized for widening the coverage of your flash even when directing it towards your subject. But for more of a studio lighting effect without the bulk, there are also mini softboxes that can be used with your speedlight.
Make Use of Ambient Light
It’s easy to just keep flashing your camera to provide better lighting for your subject, but it doesn’t always produce the best photographic results. Oftentimes, you’ll make the background disappear almost completely while you’re busy exposing your subject.
Allowing the ambient light and your background to appear will add context to your subject and give your photo a sense of atmosphere. You can do this by shooting in Manual Exposure Mode instead of Auto and then adjusting your camera settings to first expose the background. This will expectedly underexpose your subject, but then you can use the appropriate flash power to compensate for the light stop difference between the background and foreground and properly expose your subject.
Bonus Tip: Use rear curtain sync to create cool effects when photographing holiday parties and in other low-light situations. This setting tells your flash to go off a little later—right before the shutter closes—to capture some blurring and moving ambient lights before the burst of light. See how it works below:
Use Colored Flash Gels
Using flash gels is a great way to add interest and color to your photo. They can be attached to your flash to add a colored tint to the light that it emits. Aside from producing creative effects, it is also commonly used to match the the color of the flash with the ambient light.
Room lights usually have a different color temperature compared to flashes. Without matching the light temperatures, your image will look unnatural and it becomes easy for viewers to tell that a flash was used. This can be easily fixed by setting your camera white balance to auto or tungsten (for tungsten room light) and then adding an amber filter or Color Temperature Orange (CTO) filter over the flash lens to correct your foreground color.
Bonus Tip: Use colored flash diffusers to diffuse and correct the color temperature of the light coming from the flash with a single accessory.
Use TTL Technology
Using the Through-The-Lens (TTL) mode of your flash unit helps make shooting under changing ambient lighting conditions a whole lot easier. When enabled (iTTL for Nikon and eTTL for Canon), the flash quickly communicates with the camera, which then checks the current lighting condition and the distance between the flash and subject to determine the required flash power to light the scene. This makes it perfect for virtually any shooting situation. You can also pair it with bounce techniques.
Bonus Tip: Try dialing the flash compensation down to lessen the flash power and produce slightly more natural results.
Enable High-Speed Flash Sync
There may be times when you want to use your flash with a fast shutter speed, either to stop motion or to provide fill light while shooting in broad daylight. However, there’s such a thing as a maximum flash sync speed, which is the fastest shutter speed you can use that will still remain in sync with your flash. Going beyond 1/125 or 1/250, depending on your camera model, will leave large sections of black in your final image thanks to the shutter blocking the image sensor mid-exposure.
Part of the reason why your camera’s native sync speed doesn’t work well with your flash is that the flash duration is shorter than fast shutter speed exposures. And by turning on the High-Speed Flash Sync (in Canon cameras) or Auto FP (in Nikon cameras), the flash fires longer and in the exact moment that the sensor is fully exposed.
Use More Than One Flash
For a more three-dimensional light effect, you can use more than one flash to illuminate your subject. This requires significant knowledge in operating and syncing multiple wireless flashes with your camera directly or via a wireless transmitter or slave.
The concept of using more than one flash unit is simple: you use multiple lights to create shadows, highlights, and sometimes even rim lights on your subject.
To create the traditional studio quality three-point lighting setup, you’ll need a Key light facing your subject and positioned close to either side of the camera, a fill light facing your subject and positioned near the other side of the camera, and a backlight behind the subject (ideally facing the Fill Light) to create subtle highlights and separate the subject from the background. Alternatively, you can use either the Fill Light or Backlight with the Key Light for a two-point setup.
How to Choose a Flash
There are several things to keep in mind as you enter the world of flash photography—particularly when choosing a flash. For starters, if you’re looking to go from beginner to pro, it’s best to avoid using your camera’s built-in flash. These flashes make images look washed out and dull, so an external flash, also known as a speedlight, is a better option.
When it comes to choosing the right gear, consider a few key flash photography features: how long the flash will last, the flash battery life, and how flexible it is (e.g., can you quickly adjust it around based on the scene, or is it static?). Also, consider whether you want manual or automatic (known as TTL). Manual gives you full flexibility when setting your scene, but it also requires more legwork than automatic, which works in tandem with the camera to properly illuminate the scene. Can’t decide? Some flashes offer both!
