Your cameras flash can be your worse enemy, and your greatest ally.
I will talk a bit about how it can hurt you first, as a lot of people don't know when not to use the flash, or even that there are different settings for you flash.
I bring this up because today as I went for my usual rounds taking some sunset pictures, I saw a man also taking pictures.
The problem though is that he had his flash on, because it was getting dark out at the last twinkling of the sun, as it slipped away for the night.
This happened, I would venture to guess, because he had the settings on auto, and the camera accurately detected the lower light settings.
The first problem is that the sun happens to be a very long ways away, so no amount of flash will illuminate it, or the distant horizon for that matter.
So you are consuming precious battery power with nothing to show for it.
The second problem is that the suns' light is getting weaker, and the light emitted from your flash will act to block out the sunlight in substitute for your artificial lighting.
This will cause the brilliant light of the sunset on the pink, orange, and purple, clouds to become fuzzy.
It will also add allot of "noise" to the picture.
One way to fix the low light problem is to go to your "night scene" setting on your camera, should you have one.
You need to navigate your way to the scenes area of your camera, and within its settings you will find the "night scene", and make sure the flash is off, please.
An other way to fix it is with turning the flash off manually, and turning the camera at an angle as to absorb as much light from the failing sunset as passable.
Camera angle is vital in many shots, a normally lousy shot can look magical just by adjusting it to your advantage.
Now when a flash will help you is generally when ever taking pictures of a person, or thing within close proximity to you.
The rule most people go by is anything within 10 ft or so, or within 10 ft of reach of your remote flash.
There are different settings for your flash as well, which makes the subject of flash kind of exciting.
I found the fill flash to be of the most use as it isn't as harsh as the regular flash, but you need to keep in mind that at times flash may take away from the color, or saturation of a picture.
So a gentle pulse of light may be just the desired effect.
It is also very useful when taking picture of a person standing before a brilliant sunset.
just enough light to fill in the persons features, with out taking from the setting sun.
So get out there and have some fun playing around with your camera, and turn those great moments into even greater pictures.
I will talk a bit about how it can hurt you first, as a lot of people don't know when not to use the flash, or even that there are different settings for you flash.
I bring this up because today as I went for my usual rounds taking some sunset pictures, I saw a man also taking pictures.
The problem though is that he had his flash on, because it was getting dark out at the last twinkling of the sun, as it slipped away for the night.
This happened, I would venture to guess, because he had the settings on auto, and the camera accurately detected the lower light settings.
The first problem is that the sun happens to be a very long ways away, so no amount of flash will illuminate it, or the distant horizon for that matter.
So you are consuming precious battery power with nothing to show for it.
The second problem is that the suns' light is getting weaker, and the light emitted from your flash will act to block out the sunlight in substitute for your artificial lighting.
This will cause the brilliant light of the sunset on the pink, orange, and purple, clouds to become fuzzy.
It will also add allot of "noise" to the picture.
One way to fix the low light problem is to go to your "night scene" setting on your camera, should you have one.
You need to navigate your way to the scenes area of your camera, and within its settings you will find the "night scene", and make sure the flash is off, please.
An other way to fix it is with turning the flash off manually, and turning the camera at an angle as to absorb as much light from the failing sunset as passable.
Camera angle is vital in many shots, a normally lousy shot can look magical just by adjusting it to your advantage.
Now when a flash will help you is generally when ever taking pictures of a person, or thing within close proximity to you.
The rule most people go by is anything within 10 ft or so, or within 10 ft of reach of your remote flash.
There are different settings for your flash as well, which makes the subject of flash kind of exciting.
I found the fill flash to be of the most use as it isn't as harsh as the regular flash, but you need to keep in mind that at times flash may take away from the color, or saturation of a picture.
So a gentle pulse of light may be just the desired effect.
It is also very useful when taking picture of a person standing before a brilliant sunset.
just enough light to fill in the persons features, with out taking from the setting sun.
So get out there and have some fun playing around with your camera, and turn those great moments into even greater pictures.