Playing around with flash can help you get fantastic photos. Indoors, it is possible to turn harsh flash into soft illumination thus ending up with beautiful photos. By playing around with the shutter speeds, the ISO settings and apertures, you too can flexibly use a flash whether in dim light or harsh light.
What you need to successfully bounce flash?
- Bounce flash does consume a lot more power than direct flash. As such you need to have plenty of fresh batteries at hand just in case.
- You will need to increase the ISO from 100 to at least 400 if you wish to extend the battery life and speed up the recycle times.
- In case your camera can shoot in Raw, do so. By shooting in RAW, you are able to, at the end of the photo shoot, correct problems such as contrast and exposure issues as well as color balance which issues are common with flash.
- In case the flashgun you have doesn’t have a built-in bounce card or if it is not doing the job right then you can improvise. You can make use of a piece of white card to do the job just fine
How to bounce flash explained:
- You need to control the exposure
When you control the exposure you will have a better grip on light on the photos you take. Ideally, the camera needs to be set to manual exposure mode with the flashgun set to its E-TTL mode. This, in addition to making use of a shutter speed of about 1/60sec with a wide aperture in order to ensure that the background is not in focus. - You need to find the right surface
Finding the right surface will help do way with any nasty tints to the shots. For indoor photo taking, you need to bear in mind the color of the ceiling. Ideally an off-white color should do just fine simply because a colored ceiling tends to add a dash of nasty tint to the shot. - Make portraits come alive with white plastic card
You need to ensure that you have a white plastic card on hand to help bounce flash in order to make portraits look more alive. - Avoid over-exposure or under-exposure
You can increase or decrease the light level of the camera by making use of the flash exposure compensation option. This is turn will help you do away with having an over-exposure or under-exposure.
The above should help you take one incredible photo after another. Learning how to bounce flash indoors can help you turn a ‘lifeless’ portrait into one with plenty of life. However, there are instances where bounce flash can also look plain. This can be taken care of by simply pulling out the bounce card that is found on a number of hotshoe guns. In this scenario, it is better to point the flash anyplace such as a wall or ceiling as opposed to pointing it directly on the subject. This will help diffuse or even out the light.
For more information about how to take photos indoors, check out Celebrity Photo Booth’s website at celebrityphotobooth.ca.
