How to Use Fill Flash

When photographing people outdoors is is important to use fill flash to improve the lighting of a photograph.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Camera with flash
• someone to photograph.

1. When making a photograph of people outdoors it is important to add fill flash. You need a camera with a flash and you need to understand how to cause your camera to use the flash even in outdoor light where the camera thinks there is enough light.

2. Place the person with the sun behind them. If possible eleminate as much of the sky from the photo as possible. Trees make a nice cool tone background causing the warm skin tones to project forward in the photograph and be more noticable.

3. Set the camera controls to cause the flash to go off. The camera may think it has enough light not to need a flash so you have to exercise creative control and add flash on the faces of the subjects. The flash should ideally be about 1 stop lower than a light meter would measure the ambient light level. You likely will not have adjustable power flash strobes, but that is ok you will still get a better photo than what you could have without flash. There are ways to reduce the level of flash you add by softening the light making the flash pass through a white cloth or translucent material. Professional photographers use a soft box as a lighting attachment and the resulting light is softer not as likely to make hard shadows. Light can also be softened by bounding the flash off of a white card or the ceiling or a white wall.

Tips & Warnings

• Keep the subjects head below the line of the horizon.
• Use White or green or blue tone clothes for portraits.
• Color coodinate family members clothing
• plan your photograph - portrait in advance.
• Photography can be a very expensive hobby because the better you see your photos getting the more equipment you will want.