Is a flash gun a must?

mrbez

mrbez

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Hi Guys,

I took a picture of my old man last night, whilst we were outside in the dark.

The outcome was that he was extremely bright, the flash is intense!

Is this problem encountered with a flash gun or ring? As I am assuming that you can control the brightness of the flash with one of these?

Therefore, would it be beneficial for myself (Who is an amateur at present) to look into buying a flash gun?

Thanks,

Craig.
 
You should be able to adjust the flash from within the camera.

You can also add diffusers to the on board flash so the light is not as harsh.
 
Ok, firstly you need to look at your ISO. Check it is not on Auto..

Then turn it to 100 (Nikon) (50) Canon.. Set the Apperture to f5.6-f8 and 100th sec in manual mode. Adjust from there..

using a flashgun off camera and side on to your subject will give better or more interesting results.

If you use something like a Yongnuo radio trigger and attact a flashgun to the receiver on a tripod or light stand it will be even better..

What camera are you using? Have a look through some of the older posts in people and portraits...
 
What camera do you have, Craig? As said, almost every camera with an inboard flash has something in the menu to dial up or down the flash. Dare I say it: RTFM! :lol:
 
there are a couple of reasons why i think there is a good case for buying a dedicated flash gun (light output aside)

1) much faster recycling time and using the flash doesn't drain the camera battery - and if the batteries are getting low on the flash gun and it can't recycle in time, instead of blocking the camera like the built in flash (viewfinder saying 'busy'), it will let the camera take the picture, just without the flash.... which is better than no picture at all.

2) high speed sync. your built in flash will only sync at 1/200 max. it's ok for night time/indoors, but if you want to use fill flash in daylight, it will almost certainly mean that your image is disastrously over exposed.

depending on your iso setting, this could be what happened here. i leave my flash in high speed sync mode most of the time and let ettl work out the power value. i sometimes find i need to dial in some compensation (either way), but a lot of the time it gets it bang on.
 
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MrCraigBerry said:
Hi Guys,

I took a picture of my old man last night, whilst we were outside in the dark.

The outcome was that he was extremely bright, the flash is intense!

Is this problem encountered with a flash gun or ring? As I am assuming that you can control the brightness of the flash with one of these?

Therefore, would it be beneficial for myself (Who is an amateur at present) to look into buying a flash gun?

Thanks,

Craig.
Click to expand...

OK.

Having read what you've written it seems that the flash has put too much power into the picture. I'm basing that on "The outcome was that he was extremely bright, the flash is intense!"

It may be a couple of simple, easily fixed reasons.

It could be that you're on Matrix metering, and the tiny little flash is trying to light the entire scene, background and all, and not simply pop a little light into your dad's face. Therefore it fires out as much as it can making your dad's face way too bright. It's trying to get an even exposure across the entire frame. It doesn't know what you want.

It could be that the flash is set to over compensate (+FEV on the flash). Unlikely, unless you've done it by accident.

Another flash will not fix this, but taking control of the onboard will.

You have to tell the flash how much light you want it to add, you either do this through telling it which bits to meter via TTL (switch to spot metering for example and metering off your dad's face) or by letting it have a rough guess then dialling in the flash compensation manually.

The 40D allows for +/- 2.0 stops of flash comensation (FEV) with the onboard flash.

Adding a flashgun just means you've got the same problem, but with more power available to you...
 
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