Not well lit photos?

[jetpilotx]

I've been getting familiar with the basics of photography. Currently, the problem I face is lighting. I like natural light better than flash. The problem is, there are a lot of times that the camera says the lighting is poor. I've resorted to increasing ISO rather than adjusting shutter speed because it tends to produce blurry pictures. Should I be more familiar flash? It just looks unnatural that I can't stand it.

Shooting against the light is a problem for me too. Is there another way to go around this?

 

[rokvi]

Flash is good for filling in the shadowed areas with light. Also If your taking a photo facing a light source eg. sunset etc. using a flash can give you a well exposed subject along with that nice sunset. Off camera flash also helps against "red eye" and will give your subjects "some" shadow, whereas head on flash will render the lighting as flat. Fill light can also be obtained with reflectors as well. Bouncing your flash off a wall or ceiling will "soften" the light too so that it looks more natural and not so harsh.

 

[Fred Berg]

I've been getting familiar with the basics of photography. Currently, the problem I face is lighting. I like natural light better than flash. The problem is, there are a lot of times that the camera says the lighting is poor. I've resorted to increasing ISO rather than adjusting shutter speed because it tends to produce blurry pictures. Should I be more familiar flash? It just looks unnatural that I can't stand it.

Shooting against the light is a problem for me too. Is there another way to go around this?

Getting to know how to use a flash takes time and practice, but it's something you need to get to grips with at some point. You mention, for instance, that shooting against the light is a problem you face; well, a flash can help here. In a situation where you are shooting into the light, very often your subject will be dark or come out as a silhouette, but by using flash you can correctly expose your subject and keep it looking natural.

What I try to do when the sun is in front or to the side of me is to position myself so that some object provides me with shade, this can be a building or a street sign, a branch of a tree or whatever; the point is that the strong light doesn't fall directly into or across the lens. Also, I'm assuming you use lens hoods in strong light. If not, time to start doing so.

You can also use exposure compensation to deal with strong opposing light. You need to overexpose your subject however, and this can lead to a blown out background....and so we are back at using our number one friend in this situation: the flash.

Hope this helps in some small way.

 

[rokvi]

I just went and grabbed a model and took these for you too compare



#1 Is direct light using ettl setting.
#2 Is manual bounced off ceiling.
#3 Is manual bounced off wall left of camera.

 

[rokvi]

Manual flash Bounced off wall left of camera at iso 100



As you can see you can use flash without making the light look harsh on your subject.

 

[Robin Usagani]

In this situation, no flash would probably look really good if you expose it properly. I am just not understanding why you compared them with underexposed no flash photo?

 

[pgriz]

Natural light is great if there is enough of it and it has a good distribution for your subject. But when it's quantity, quality, direction, or colour is not good enough, then supplemental lighting becomes necessary to fulfill your photographic vision. I've been photographing for over 40 years, and my biggest lack was understanding how lighting can and does shape the subject. Over the past five years, I've made a concentrated effort to learn (master is not yet within reach) how to use supplemental light, and how to read the light to see how much was needed and where. Properly done, you don't even know flash or supplemental light was used, unless you study the image very carefully to see the sources of lights and their shadows.

One source which I found to be very useful is: Amazon.com: Light Science and Magic, Fourth Edition: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting (9780240812250): Fil Hunter, Paul Fuqua, Steven Biver: Books. Keith, one of the forum moderators, recommended it to me and I have read it at least three times cover to cover and am still working my way through the various exercises. Which much of it deals with studio work, understanding light, shadow, various types of reflections, and the way light interacts with your subject is equally applicable to other situations. I strongly recommend it.

Google "Off-Camera Flash" or OCF and look though the many references that you will find. Direct flash is usually a poor contributor to lighting a scene, and benefits from various strategies such as bouncing (against walls, ceilings), reflecting (umbrellas, softboxes), diffusing (shoot-through umbrellas, softboxes), etc.

 

[Buckster]

When you've learned how to use flash(es) and modifiers to shape your light, you'll understand that you can make it look just like natural sunlight, or any other kind of light that you think is appropriate for the photo you want to produce, and that's a very important step in your photographic education.

The first thing I'll recommend is this: Get the flash off the camera. Lighting people or objects primarily from directly above the lens on top of the camera, especially indoors where it can leave telltale shadows on walls and so on behind the subject, is the least flattering light there is. As others have said above, it can work well when bounced off ceilings or walls or other modifiers, but as a direct light on it's own doing all the work to light up a scene or subject while pointed directly at them, not so good usually. That may be the reason you say it looks unnatural to the point that you can't stand it. We know what you mean!

Second, this is the mechanics, the why, when and how of the recommendation above: Go read and practice these lighting setups to get a free education in understanding how to shape and work with light(s) and modifiers: Strobist: Lighting 101 Getting started with learning off camera flash (OCF) is easy and doesn't cost a lot to begin and to start getting some really good results.

 

[KmH]

I'll add that using strobed light (flash) gives you way more control over the light compared to having to accept whatever light is available.

By using flash you can shoot whenever you want to shoot, instead of waiting around for 'the right lighting'.

A big advantage of using flash, is that the camera shutter speed and lens aperture can be used to separately control the ambient and strobed light exposures with a single shutter release.

dg28.com - photographer education

 

[rokvi]

In this situation, no flash would probably look really good if you expose it properly. I am just not understanding why you compared them with underexposed no flash photo?

(slaps head like Kirk)...
I should have been in bed, grabbed test photo
:-x