My flash is too strong

[hamlet]

Hi everyone,


I have been taking pictures with the cameras integrated flash but my lighting is too strong in the centre sometimes. How can i even out the light over my picture so the flash is not so focused in the middle?

centre crop

 

[tirediron]

You can use your camera's flash exposure compensation, or better yet, try diffusing it with a device such as this, or even a simple piece of tissue-paper.

 

[hamlet]

Very good. Many thanks.

 

[KmH]

Many hot shoe flash units have a zoom head that widens and narrows the beam of light as lens focal length is changed.

Short focal lengths need a wider beam of light than normal or telephoto focal lengths do.

Diffusers generally just scatter light, often wasting a lot of the light by sending it to places the photographer doesn't need it.

 

[hamlet]

I suppose its a lot of trial and error. In my OP a diffuser would have done what i wanted it to, but i do understand that this is probably not optimal for every situation. I'll do it with and without diffuser to get a better feel of what i'll be needing.

 

[hamlet]

The flash on my camera is pretty powerful. I can light up a scene almost completely devoid of light.



A little fiddling with paper tissue layers and the room looks properly exposed.


Iso 100 and fastest shutter speed possible for built in flash in a dark room. Everything is as its meant to be, not overexposed and not underexposed.

 

[petto]

Get a speedlight

 

[hamlet]

I will have to educate myself first. For now i don't feel limited by my built-in flash.

 

[Mach0]

I will have to educate myself first. For now i don't feel limited by my built-in flash.

Speedlights allowing you to bounce flash so you don't get the harsh strong light you're complaining about. If you feel you aren't limited, try buying one of those modifiers that allow you to bounce your on camera flash.

 

[pgriz]

The closer the light source is to the optical axis, the less shadow detail there is (giving "flat" lighting), and the higher chance of specular reflections (giving glare). Not to mention creating "red-eye" in people, and "gold-eye" in pets. As well, the smaller the light source, the harder the shadows, and the stronger the specular reflections. Thirdly, since light follows the inverse-square law, the light fall-off with distance is very strong when the subject is close (which is usually what camera flashes have enough power to light), leading to a rather narrow zone of "good" light, and over-exposed closer to the camera, and too dark further from the camera.

To combat these issues, there are a number of techniques that can be used. First, to create shadows that give volume, the flash source is moved off-camera, or at least away from the optical axis. Bouncing the flash off a wall or ceiling or other reflective surface usually moves the "light source" away from the optical axis. This bounce technique also serves to make the light-source (the wall or ceiling) much larger, giving a more rounded look to the shadows created. Thirdly, with a longer distance to the subject, the light fall-off is much less. However, bouncing the light means that you're now spreading your photons around and you need a lot more of them to give a decent exposure. So bouncing can work IF your flash unit has enough power.

Another technique is to put a modifier on the flash unit which makes the light source appear larger. Portable soft-box attachments, and bounce card attachments all try to broaden the apparent area of light. Again, since you're spreading out the light, you generally need a separate flash unit (often on a flash bracket) with enough power, to make this work.

All this assumes that the flash is the main source of light. If you are trying to mix ambient with flash, then you have in fact TWO exposures occurring at the same time. There is a setting for the ambient, and another for the flash. What they will share is the aperture. The ambient exposure is then controlled by the shutter speed (up to the sync limit), and the flash exposure is controlled by the flash power setting. Once you get a feeling for how to control either exposure, it's not too difficult, but doing this well is a higher-skill exercise.

 

[cynicaster]

I will have to educate myself first. For now i don't feel limited by my built-in flash.

Normally, I'd be the first to support an approach of not buying "more gear" before learning how to use the stuff that came in the box when you bought your camera.

But with flash, the pop-up flash is so limited as to border on being useless, IMO. As mentioned in this thread, there is some trickery that can be employed to make it marginally "less useless", but it still doesn't compare to a half-decent hot-shoe flash with a bounce head.

 

[joethephotographer]

This guy has some really nice tips on how to get not-so-harshly-lit photographs from your flash. He's mentioned different types of (mainly DIY) diffusers that can be used depending on the shooting conditions.

 

[gsgary]

Your flash is not too strong your knowledge is too weak, when shooting flash with ambient light you have 2 exposures, shutter speed handles ambient light and aperture looks after flash

 

[hirejn]

The examples show me nothing. I have a calibrated monitor and I see relatively even light. The closeup may look brighter but that's only because it lacks context. Flash naturally has a hot center and brightness naturally falls off as it goes to the sides. Having, for example, a more expensive Speedlight won't do much to fix that. The way to correct this is to get a modifier that increases the size of the light source. For example, bouncing off of a wall or through a larger diffuser will effectively increase the size of the source in relation to the subject and more evenly distribute light across it, thus reducing the hot spot effect. Gary Fong sells diffusers for pop-ups, but I'd recommend an external Speedlight with a somewhat larger diffuser.

 

[petto]

The examples show me nothing. I have a calibrated monitor and I see relatively even light. The closeup may look brighter but that's only because it lacks context. Flash naturally has a hot center and brightness naturally falls off as it goes to the sides. Having, for example, a more expensive Speedlight won't do much to fix that. The way to correct this is to get a modifier that increases the size of the light source. For example, bouncing off of a wall or through a larger diffuser will effectively increase the size of the source in relation to the subject and more evenly distribute light across it, thus reducing the hot spot effect. Gary Fong sells diffusers for pop-ups, but I'd recommend an external Speedlight with a somewhat larger diffuser.

Having a speed lite will do A LOT for that "naturally hot center". It can in fact eliminate it completely. The idea behind the speed light is to use it off camera. Then you can filter and direct it any way you want. The attached pic (sorry if quality is down, working from iPad so don't have original handy) is done with 1 speed lite camera right shot through an umbrella. The beauty is once the light is off the camera you can put it anywhere. Complete freedom for many many options. A Youngnu set up with transceivers will run you about $200 depending on which model you choose.

Edit:
As an FYI this shot is lit solely with the 1 speedlight. Shutter speed was high enough for a black exposure without the speedlight. Then speedlight and aperture were adjusted to expose properly. I believe ISO was 100-200 ish.