8 On-Camera Flash Tips: How To

Get Better Lighting From Your On-

Camera Flash

Image by Steve Hanna

Ed Verosky is a professional photographer and author based in New

York. In this article, Verosky offers up eight useful tips for anyone
wanting to get better portraiture results with on-camera flash. To
learn more about this subject, check out Veroskyʼs popular eBook,
“100% Reliable Flash Photography.“

You can get great lighting for your portraits with on-camera flash.
And thereʼs no need to purchase expensive attachments to modify
your light, because everything you need is already there. The thing

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 to understand is that your flash unit is just another light source at
your disposal. Fortunately, you can learn to control the light it
produces and shape it to your needs. Plus, it has the added benefit
of doing some of the thinking for you when you need it to.

Since the light your flash unit produces directly can appear rather
harsh, youʼll have to do one or both of the following in order to get
more pleasing lighting from it:

Create a larger, wider area of light relative to your subject.

Illuminate your subject from an angle other than directly off the
top of the camera.

The following tips will help you accomplish these goals:

1. Bounce It.

This is the number one secret weapon when it comes to on-camera

flash techniques. Indoors, a typical room with light-colored walls and
ceilings will provide you with all the bounce surfaces you need to
make beautiful pictures. Using this technique, you can achieve
softbox-style lighting, or even very broad lighting, with your flash
unit alone.

Wall/ceiling bounce

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 Although the flash unit itself is a relatively small light source, it will
cover a wide area of a wall and ceiling. This newly illuminated area
will provide a wider, more diffuse “light source” for the subject.

On-camera flash bounced off wall and ceiling, camera left.

To create a portrait with the bounce technique, I generally tilt the

flash unit to hit the ceiling and wall as I visualize a large softbox
there, at the traditional portrait lighting angle, to my subject. This
technique is very versatile as it can give you everything from very
dramatic split-lighting to soft, even illumination. The subjectʼs
orientation, and the resultant secondary bounce around the room
(providing fill light) are the keys to creating the effect you want.

You can even angle your flash up and behind you to fill a small to
normal-size room up with beautiful light. Spin it around and up at
about 45 degrees to hit the wall and ceiling behind you.

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 2) Flag It.

Something most people donʼt realize is that light comes out of your
flash unit in a wide pattern, not in a straight beam. While most of the
light is focused forward, there is a good amount actually spilling out
perpendicular to the flash head lens.

Even when your flash is set to a narrow zoom, plenty of light still
spills off the sides. A small flag can be used to block this effect from
your subject.

When bouncing your flash, at certain angles close to that

perpendicular plane, direct light will hit your subject. This isnʼt
necessarily something you have to avoid, but it can result in “point-
and-shoot” type shadows, especially if there is a wall or other flat
surface just behind your subject.

To eliminate this effect, you can place a small piece of opaque

material or black foam just long enough to block the direct part of
the light from hitting your subject. That one little change can make a
big difference in the overall look of your shot.

3) Make It Bigger.

The size of your light source, relative to your subject, affects the
overall look of the picture. This is generally because a larger light

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 source will create a smoother transition between light and shadow,
or what you might call softer light.

Craft foam bounce card with rubber band.

Weʼve already discussed how bouncing your light off a wall and
ceiling will make the relative size of the light illuminating your subject
larger. But what if you donʼt have a wall or other surface to bounce
your flash off of? You can still make your light source bigger by using
a simple bounce card. Because the light being directed toward your
subject is at least twice as large as the face of the flash, youʼll get
that much more surface area coverage. This usually results in more
pleasing illumination if youʼre not too far away from your subject.

Indoors, a bounce card like this has the added benefit of throwing
light onto your subject from two directions, forward and bounced off
the ceiling.

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 Simply use a piece of white cardboard or crafting foam attached to
your flash head. Of course, you can orient the flash in various ways
to direct the light as you like.

4) Use TTL.

Most modern flash units offer a variety of modes to shoot with. For
example, I will often use my flash units off-camera, in manual mode.
This allows me to maintain consistent manual control of the flashʼs
output power in relatively static shooting situations, like traditional
portraiture.

Through-The-Lens (TTL) mode, on the other hand, puts the flash

unitʼs output under the control of the camera and flash. The camera
and flash essentially work together to decide how much light the
flash emits in order to properly expose the subject. Most modern
TTL systems like Canonʼs E-TTL and Nikonʼs i-TTL are really great at
what they do.

TTL can be used in just about every shooting situation including

shooting in your cameraʼs manual mode, outdoors, and even when
using bounce techniques. Since TTL can make life a whole lot easier
for you, especially in fast-moving shooting situations, thereʼs no
reason not to use it extensively for on-camera flash work.

When youʼre ready, you might want to learn more advanced

techniques using Flash Exposure Compensation and general
Exposure Compensation controls in conjunction with TTL flash.
These controls allow you to make easy adjustments to flash and
overall exposure while still letting the TTL system do most of the
thinking for you. Very handy indeed.

5) Use High-Speed Sync.

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 If your flash unit has a high-speed sync setting, turn it on. Most
normal sync speeds for your flash will be limited to about 1/250 –
1/350 sec. Thatʼs fine for situations where youʼre in an environment
with dim light. When shooting indoors, for example, you are free to
shoot at any appropriate shutter speed UP TO your normal flash
sync speed limit. That means you can just as easily shoot at 1/40
second to record ambient light, or faster if you choose to isolate the
subject or really freeze the action.

1/2500 sec. exposure required high-speed sync for this promotional

shot using f/2.8 outdoors.

However, whether indoors or out, if your exposures require a higher

shutter speed, high-speed sync will allow you to shoot at virtually
any shutter speed, generally up to 1/8000 sec.

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 Youʼll usually need to work with higher shutter speeds if normal sync
at your chosen aperture and ISO will result in overexposure of the
ambient lighted portions of the image. This can happen easily in
outdoor portrait situations, where the ambient background is rather
bright, and youʼd like a little fill flash on your subject. High-speed
sync to the rescue!

Leaving your high-speed sync mode on all the time doesnʼt mean itʼs
always in use. Your camera and flash will only use it if you are
shooting beyond the normal sync speed. Otherwise, the flash will
simply revert to its normal behavior.

6) Gel It.

DSLRs have the advantage of overall color control via the white
balance (WB) setting you use. And if youʼre shooting in RAW format,
you easily have enough information in the image file to adjust for
proper WB after the fact in something like Adobeʼs Lightroom.

But there are times when you want to make sure the light coming off
your flash unit is close to the same color as the ambient light. This
will ensure that most of the light in your images are in the same
ballpark, color temperature-wise.

Again, youʼll likely get the best results if you adjust WB during post
processing, but this way the images will have a more consistent color
throughout.

To bring your flash into the tungsten range of color for most ambient
situations, you can use a Color Temperature Orange (CTO) filter over
the flash lens. Set your cameraʼs WB to tungsten, if you like, and fine
tune the WB in post as necessary.

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 7) Use The Ambient Light.

Another tell-tale sign of misused on-camera flash is the dark tunnel

effect. This happens when the camera is exposing well enough for
the flash illuminated subject, but not enough environment light is
being recorded. Allowing the ambient light and surroundings to
appear in the image will place your subject in context and give the
image a sense of atmosphere.

Bounce card combined with 1/40 sec. exposure.

Even if your camera has a preset flash mode for achieving this effect,
I strongly recommend switching over to the cameraʼs manual mode.
This will allow you to manually determine slower shutter speeds to
achieve exactly the amount of ambient light you want for the image.

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 Creative use of direct flash and long shutter speed.

I find that shutter speeds of 1/15 – 1/40 second work for most
environments, including outdoors at night. Regular TTL should still
be employed in order for the camera and flash to make a good
determination about the exposure of the subject (what the flash is
concerned with). But, you are in control of the ambient with the
shutter speeds you select.

8) Turn It Off.

Sometimes, the best thing you can do with your on-camera flash is
nothing at all. As you become more proficient with it, you might be
tempted to use it all the time. However, you donʼt want to become
dependent on it. After all, thereʼs plenty of good light available in
most situations. But when you need a little extra here and there, itʼs
nice to know you can always slap on that flash and get great shots

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 on demand.

Sometimes flash fill light just isn't right for the picture.

Get more of Edʼs great tips on flash photography in his e-book –

100% Reliable Flash Photography.

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