If you study your family photos carefully, sooner or later you will
notice that many of your images illuminated with flash have too much
light on the subject. Sometimes the flash even blows out your people.
At the same time, this causes the background to go dark. To make
matters worse, when your photo lab or even your photo program on the
computer lowers the brightness to improve the overflashing of your
subjects, the background goes even darker.
The obvious solution
is to lower the flash intensity. All DSLR's and some point and shoot
cameras give you this control. I have another solution for you if yours
doesn't.
On
a DSLR it is fairly easy to find the flash over and under exposure
control. If it's not intuitive check your manual, but once you find it
you will see how easy it is to adjust from day to day. On most Nikon and Canon cameras
you will find that the flash exposure adjustment scale with small vertical
dashes, and you have been shooting with the intensity that the camera
considers normal, the one right in the middle of the scale. The dashes typically represent 1/3 of a stop, but
don't worry if you don't know what that means.
To get familiar with your flash intensity control, get yourself a
helpful subject and take several shots, reducing each shot's intensity
by a dash until you find the results pleasing. Now this won't solve
your problem permanently. You will find that different circumstances
call for different flash power. But at least you will be able to
manually handle the amount of flash on the scene. By the way, that
green "Auto" setting on your camera dial might not let you do this.
Change the dial setting to P (Program), which is very similar to Auto
but permits you to control more settings.
What about your point
and shoot? If it has a flash exposure adjustment capability it may be
in one of the menus. If not, you can try other tricks. Have you ever
been yelled at by a subject for having your finger over the flash?
Well, that may have actually been a good thing! Try covering part of
the flash with a finger to reduce intensity. But leave your finger about a half inch away from the camera. You may
also find some small flash diffusers on the market that you can use over your point and shoot's small flash.
Why use
flash at all if there is light in the room or you're outdoors? For some
very good reasons, actually, but that's a lesson for a future Pro Tip.