Flash photography tip: Darken your background

Tuesday 15 April 2025, 16:32 by Elja Trum | 3,789 views | 4 comments

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

By playing with your shutter speed, you can darken the background in your photo. This creates an effect as if you were shooting in the evening or at night, even though you're simply shooting in the middle of the day.

Isabelle - f/2.8, 1/160s, 320 ISO @ 95mm
You can also use this to make your background a little darker. It won't look like night, but more attention will go to your subject.

You need to make your shutter speed faster than your camera indicates for this. Suppose the correct exposure with your settings is 1/20th of a second, for example. Then go to 1/160s.

You are effectively underexposing the background by 3 stops. So you'll see your background getting darker while you can still light your subject with your flash.

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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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4 comments

Donald Willemsen wrote on Thursday 17 April 2025 at 10:29 | reply
Hello Elja, you write the following: 'By playing with your shutter speed, you can make the background in your photo dark. This creates an effect as if you are photographing in the evening or at night, while you are actually just working in the middle of the day.'

Now I read in another article of yours that when you put an orange filter on the flash and set the WB to artificial light, you also get a night effect, even though the photo was taken during the day.

So what is the best method to achieve that night effect?
Translated from Dutch.

Elja Trum wrote on Thursday 17 April 2025 at 11:08 | reply
In both cases I underexpose the background. So that is a constant to get the night effect. With the version with the color filter I also make the background blue.

As far as I'm concerned, it's otherwise a matter of taste.
Translated from Dutch.

Donald Willemsen wrote on Thursday 17 April 2025 at 13:39 | reply
Elja, thanks for the clarification.
Translated from Dutch.

johandeman wrote on Tuesday 22 April 2025 at 12:24 | reply
1/20 sec seems a bit long to me for taking sharp photos of people. And going from 1/20 sec to 1/160 sec is 8x less light, 3 stops, then the photo does become very dark. But definitely a good tip
Translated from Dutch.

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