Camera Use - Week 6 - Flash: Direct, Reflected, Diffused

In Class Exercises:

1. Under Exposed Background:
I took a portrait of Richele with an underexposed background and then perfected the theory of (the higher the shutter speed - the more under exposed the background will be).

1/200

1/160

1/100

1/60

1/30

I underexposed the background by lowering the shutter speed at least two stops than the recommended shutter speed value. I also used aperture on the flash to control the output of my flash so that my subject (Richele) is properly exposed.

2. Fill In Flash:

1/200, f5.6

1/125, f10.0

1/125, f22.0

I found that the best result for these f-stops was definitely the f10.0 as it didn't make the subject and the remainder of the image too underexposed or overexposed. The flash was a nice, subtle addition to the overall feel in the middle image.

3. Bounce Flash: 
I took a portrait of Richele as my subject. This time I used the following flash techniques:

Pointed straight up using a low roof:

pointing straight up (gives a more subtle / falling light)

pointing at a wall (depends on where the wall is and gives off a harsher effect)

pointed behind me (gives a lighter effect because there is no flash directly on the subject and it was bright daylight)

4. Diffused flash using half-moon:
I photographed Richele using a flash diffuser and then without the diffuser.

I took this photograph on a medium shutter speed with a light diffuser on my flash. I like the subtle glow it gives Richele without pushing the limit of over exposing her face.

I then took this photo without the diffuser and the light came out much harsher. This makes her look very washed out and is not very pleasing to the eye.

5. Flash and Blur:
This exercise experiments with motion blur and flash.

Because the shutter speed was set at 1"5 seconds, this allowed me to capture Richele's movement as well as the flash firing. The flash was set at Rear Sync Flash which allowed the flash to go off later than usual.

Self Directed:

For this image, I did not use the external flash. In fact, this was an accidental flash fire when the lighting wasn't bright enough to register on camera. However, I do like this image, thus why it is included in my self directed work.

Activating the lens correction panel.

Adjusting the noise/luminance/detail panels.

slightly adjusting the basics panel to brighten the image and add depth.

For this image, as it didn't quite turn out how I had anticipated when I took it, I stuck to the basic editing for an image slightly dark like this; adjust the brightness, exposure, contrast and whites panels. I like how the image looks a lot cleaner after these changes and to add to that feel, I adjusted the noise/sharpening panel to get rid of the grainy effect the lighting had on the subject.