Bouncing Around

Making great flash photos

105Achieving great photos using flash is not an area where only professionals are allowed. Using simple techniques to control and enhance the quality of light produced by your speedlite will allow you to create great images, far from the red eyes and washed out look usually associated with flash photography.

Indoor Techniques

Ceiling

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While direct flash produces a very harsh light, reflecting it from a white ceiling softens it by creating a secondary light source, the ceiling, many times bigger than the flash head. The result is a much softer and natural light, as it resembles the light from a cloudy day in the outdoors

Walls

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The wall behind:Bounce your flash light off a wall behind you will increase the relative size of the light and provide a very soft frontal illumination on your subject The right distance: Make sure that you keep enough distance from the wall. Getting too close reduces the size of the bounced light and lessens the softtening effect, increasing contrast and shadows, getting back to a similar effect to direct flash. Directional light. Just turning your camera around creates a totally different effect. Using a lateral wall provides directional side light

Outdoor Techniques

Your portable bounce surface

This set of images show the use of a reflector to create your own bounce surface when none is available. This is a great option to soften your flash light in outdoor locations or when the surrounding structure in an indoor location are too far away. (Think about a ballroom, for example)

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direct flash bounce flash off a hand held reflector
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how it is done

Use the environment

Be creative!. White sand is a great reflector and you can use it to create a big bounce surface on the beach. It also introduces a pleasant warmth to the otherwise coldish flash light.

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no flash direct flash bounced flash off the sand surface
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Use the swivel feature of the flash head to point it downwards to the sand in front of your subject
  1. Chip Johansen

    Really great tips. This is the stuff that separates the pros from the amatuers.

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