Flash photography tip: Avoid underexposed or overexposed photos

Thursday 29 June 2023, 15:30 by Elja Trum | 2,800 views | 3 comments

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

An underexposed or overexposed photo is caused by your flashes not being set up correctly. Fortunately, you can often correct a lot in post-processing, but it is best to get it right during the shoot.

Sigrid - Left underexposed (2 stops), right correctly exposed
You can get the correct exposure by adjusting the flash power of your flash or by changing the settings on your camera. A combination of the two is of course also possible.

Underexposure is common in a studio situation. A studio is usually dark, so a photo can quickly look correctly exposed on the screen on the back of your camera. So always check the histogram.

You can easily use your histogram to see whether your photo is correctly exposed. You want the entire histogram to be filled, from dark to light areas.

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About the author

Elja Trum is the founder of Photofacts and online photography course website Photofacts Academy. He has been writing about photography since 2006. Elja is also the author of (Dutch) books on composition, black-and-white photography, flash photography and portrait photography.

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3 comments

Robert wrote on Tuesday 4 July 2023 at 11:05 | reply
Or you measure the flash light with a flash light meter. Or is this too old oldschool?

Robert
Translated from Dutch.

Elja Trum wrote on Tuesday 4 July 2023 at 11:49 | reply
That is very oldschool, Robert.
Of course you can also use a flash light meter, but then you have to have one, of course. I do happen to have one myself, by the way, but in practice I rarely use it anymore.
Translated from Dutch.

Robert wrote on Tuesday 4 July 2023 at 12:04 | reply
Ever since the photography academy, Elja. Nice Minolta and not only to be used for the flash.
With friendly photo-taking regards, Robert
Translated from Dutch.

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