Thursday, September 12, 2013

Bouncing your flash


Bouncing flash off walls and ceilings is a very helpful trick to use indoors and in some instances outdoors. We all know that direct flash is harsh and hard. Bouncing it will make our light softer and evenly spread.

This is a neat trick to learn.  As long as you have a white-colored surface to bounce your light with, you'll be alright.




Bouncing off ceilings



This is the most commonly used bouncing technique. You can use this indoors anytime, as long as the ceiling is white and not too high for your flash to reach.

Using this technique, you can always get a nice and soft light that is evenly spread..

This photo of baby Chelsea was taken with the flash bounced at the ceiling.



Always remember that the ceiling should be white, the color of your bounce surface will influence your light.

The height of your ceiling will also affect your light intensity. The higher the ceiling, the weaker your light will be.

You can manually adjust the flash power to determine the right amount of light hitting your subject. This is one reason why I love to adjust my flashes manually.


Bouncing off walls


Same technique but instead of bouncing up at the ceiling, we will bounce our flash at our walls. The source of  our light will come from the sides this time.

Nice to use indoors and outdoors. Any wall or white surface will do. 



Again, always remember that the color of the bounce surface will influence the color of your light. 

The distance of the wall to your subject will determine the intensity of the light. 

You can adjust light intensity manually on the flash, or you can change the subject's distance from the wall. 

Shot below is a photo of Lyn taken with the flash bounced at the wall on her right. 







Conclusion


Bouncing your flash is a nice little trick to keep under your sleeves. 

The images you'll produce using this technique will be more pleasing to the eyes than a direct nuke-em-till-they-glow flash. 

In fact, you can use this technique using different kinds of surfaces. It could be a white shirt, a white board or a white car. You get my drift?

You can use colored surfaces too if you want, depending on the look you're after.



I love to bounce my light during events and parties indoors.









Try using this and you'll create good lighting.

This is one advantage of using external flashes. You can change the direction of your flash.

Next time, we will talk about getting your flash off your camera.

Cheers!

Alex





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