Flash photography tip: Take the photo with natural light too
Sunday 10 March 2024, 14:07 by Elja Trum | 3,037 views | 6 commentsThis article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.
Flashes can often make an image more interesting, but natural light can be beautiful too. In many cases, a combination of flash and the available light is ideal. It is difficult to determine this beforehand, so I would advise you to simply take the photo without flash as well.
Natural light (left) versus underexposed combined with flash (right)
Simply switch off the trigger on your camera to prevent the flashes from going off and switch your camera to automatic, aperture-priority or shutter-priority mode.
A nice benefit is that you can clearly see the difference later, and also see exactly what the flash adds to your photo. Perhaps the final photo with natural light will be your favourite.
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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6 comments
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Donald Willemsen wrote on Tuesday 12 March 2024 at 10:45 | replyI've been looking for a while for a brand-independent IR trigger that allows me to control my flash remotely. An RF set is fine too, but in that case I need both a transmitter and a receiver.
Translated from Dutch. -
Evert wrote on Tuesday 12 March 2024 at 11:18 | replyI take a lot of photos without flash, both in the theatre and in nature.
Translated from Dutch.
If you have natural light and, for example, you find the person isn’t lit enough, you can always adjust this a little with Lightroom or Photoshop. Personally, I think natural light looks nicer, but that’s my taste. -
Donald Willemsen wrote on Tuesday 12 March 2024 at 11:52 | reply
@Evert, you contradict yourself, because there is no natural light in the theater, unless it is an outdoor theater.
Translated from Dutch. -
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jan loonstra wrote on Tuesday 12 March 2024 at 12:59 | replyI photograph without a flash using automatic ISO, and post-processing with Lightroom Classic gives me images that I am very satisfied with.
Translated from Dutch. -
Hochzeitsfotograf wrote on Friday 15 March 2024 at 16:08 | replyThe difference between these two photos is like night and day. I absolutely love photographing with a flash, especially in bright sunlight.
Translated from Dutch.
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Elja Trum
Photofacts; everything to do with photography!
Would you like to take better photos and keep up with what is happening in photography? Photofacts publishes articles that teach you something about photography — from a product announcement to a practical shooting tip or a look at a website. Photofacts covers photography every day and is a hobby project of Elja Trum's that got out of hand. The articles are written by a team of volunteer authors. If you would enjoy writing one or more articles for Photofacts, do get in touch.More about PhotofactsPhotofacts is made possible in part by
