Step by step: Adding flash to daylight

Saturday 31 August 2024, 16:32 by Elja Trum | 3,575 views | 2 comments

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

Natural light can be beautiful, but unfortunately it is not always like that. Adding flash to your photo can help. This way, you can still get beautiful light. But how do you do it? I will show you step by step.

Available light - f/2, 1/60s, 100 ISO @ 85mm
Last Wednesday, I was taking photographs at a beautiful old farm. I wanted to take a simple portrait in front of a lovely weathered wall. The available light just was not very nice.

Light often looks better when you give it some direction. Straight from the front is generally not very good, but from the side or behind can work very well.

For this photo, I chose to place a flashgun with a softbox directly beside the model. However, if you only add a flash and nothing else, the photo does not get much better.

Step 1: Underexposing the ambient light

I wanted the flash light to be visible without overexposing the model. And I wanted to create contrast between both sides of the model. One lighter side and one darker side. This creates shadows and therefore adds depth to your photo.

To achieve this, you first work on the shadow side. What should become shadow is still too bright in the first photo with the available light. So the first step is to make the entire photo darker.

You have the most control when you set your camera to M mode. However, you can also use, for example, aperture priority mode combined with underexposure, using minus values.

Underexposed - f/3.2, 1/160s, 100 ISO @ 85mm
The ISO sensitivity of my camera was already at its lowest setting: 100 ISO. So I had to work with shutter speed and/or aperture.

Making the shutter speed faster lets less light reach the sensor, making the photo darker. The same applies to the aperture. Use a smaller aperture opening, a higher number, and less light will enter.

Going from 1/60th to 1/160th is 4 steps of 1/3 stop. Going from f/2.0 to f/3.2 is 2 steps of 1/3 stop. So in total, I made the ambient light two stops darker. The result is an underexposed photo.

Often, one and a half to two stops is a nice difference for good contrast. If you go much further, you get a studio situation, everything is black unless the flash light reaches it. If you do not go far enough, there is little contrast between your light and dark areas.

Above all, decide based on your own taste how much available light you want to see in your final photo.

Behind the Scenes - f/3.2, 1/160s, 100 ISO @ 85mm

Step 2: Adding flash light

The next step is adding the flash light. I wanted soft light, so you want to place as large a surface as possible as close to your model as possible. I usually position the flash so that it is just outside my frame.

Exactly how powerful the flash needs to be depends on many factors. In my view, the simplest way to determine the right brightness is simply to take a photo. Then look at the photo and its corresponding histogram.

You want to avoid blown-out areas, so there should be no high line against the right side of the histogram. But you also want the photo to be correctly exposed, so the right side of your histogram should be filled.

Adding flash - f/3.2, 1/160s, 100 ISO @ 85mm
If you use flash more often, you will naturally develop a feel for the situation and your first estimate will often be quite good. Otherwise, just start at around half the power of your flash. For example, at 1/16th power. From there, you can still add or reduce enough light.

Now that your light is set up, you can get on with taking photographs. You only need to adjust your settings again when the ambient light changes. For example, when the sun comes out from behind the clouds.

Step 3: Editing to taste

The final step is editing your photo. In my view, this is an important step in achieving the final result you are looking for. You want the basics to be right, but there is still a lot you can achieve using, for example, Lightroom Classic.

Your editing is, of course, entirely a matter of personal taste. In this case, I chose to make the photo a little warmer. I also removed imperfections.

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