Pixiq

These days, most point-and-shoot cameras have built-in flash. Many digital SLRs do too, but not the so-called “professional” models, even though having a small flash available with the click of a button can make the difference between a good photograph and a not-so-good one.

When should you use the built-in flash? The most obvious answer is when the light is low and you need to illuminate your subject, but that may not be the best way. If light levels are low and you use the built-in flash you may get an overexposed foreground and an underexposed background. What kind of flash picture do you think people in the stands photographing night baseball or football games get with their point-and-shoot cameras? (You see’em do this on TV all the time as waves of flashes erupt from the stands while the clueless announcers refer to them as “flash bulbs.”)

 The key to using your built-in flash is knowing the right time to use it. If there’s any secret at all to knowing when, it’s learning how to see the light falling on your subject, especially the range of shadows and highlights within the scene. Learning to see light is not difficult but takes a bit of practice and using the digicam’s preview screen will help you instantly analyze those flash photographs after you’ve made them.

When making pictures of people during the day turning your built-in flash on is one of the simplest ways to improve your photographs. Instead of getting underexposed pictures or silhouettes, your friends will pop out of the background, as will the colors. So what’s the secret of good fill flash outdoors?

Basic photo books are full of rules to follow that help you obtain the mathematically correct ratios of daylight to flash  but I feel only you know what looks best. Take the time to do some testing: Shoot some exposures with your digital SLR at all the flash’s automatic settings or bracket by changing the camera’s exposure compensation dial. A few cameras seven permit bracketing exposures using the camera’s built-in flash.

Typically, I just make outdoor flash shots with the SLR set in Program mode and adjust the exposure compensation to get the look I want, but not every camera/lens combination works the same. In that case I switch to manual mode, using the base exposure selected by the camera in program mode as a starting point.

Joe is author of the new book, "Joe Farace's Glamour Photography" that's available from Amherst Media.