▲ Without flash Bright, contrasty sunshine streaming in through large windows behind the subjects—a troupe

of young singers dressed in traditional costume from Kyrgyzstan—produced a strongly backlit effect. Without
the use of flash, the shadows would appear very dark, but in this case a wall behind the camera position
reflected back some light from the windows into the shadows to relieve the contrast a little and so retain
some subject details. Use of a fill-in flash would have spoiled the composition, which relies on the pattern of
the shoes. ▲ With flash In this alternative interpretation of the previous scene (left), flash has been used. This
produced enough light to fill most of the shadows. Now we can clearly see the girls’ costumes, but note the
shadows that still remain on the carpet. The camera was set to expose the background correctly: here, an
exposure time of 1 ⁄250 sec was used. The f/number dictated by the exposure meter was then set on the lens,
and the flash was set to underexpose by 11 ⁄3 stops. This ensured that the foreground was exposed by both
the flash and the available window light. ACCESSORY FLASH Using any setup with more than one flash means
trying out different levels of flash output to discover the best results. Start by setting the slave to its lowest
power output, bearing in mind that the task of this unit is to relieve subject shadows, not act as the main light.
Some camera models are designed for multiple-flash photography. F