Improve Your Outdoor Portraits with this Simple Tip
When your photographing outdoors, the last thing you may think you need is a flash. However, have you ever wished your family or friends weren’t squinting or half lit by the sun? When shooting portraits you can significantly improve the lighting in your images by putting your flash in the Fill-in Flash mode. This flash setting appears by name (Fill-in) or by way of a single lightning bolt symbol in your flash mode settings menu selection. Normally your flash is set to Auto, which will only fire the flash when it detects low light, so in the scenarios above or something similar, setting to Fill-in Flash mode ensures it will always fire.
Benefits:
- Squinting people? Because you’re trying to make sure the picture will have enough light, your subject is usually looking into the sun trying not to squint or shielding his/her eyes resulting in an unnatural portrait. By using the flash it allows you to have your subject face away from the sun. The flash will illuminate them properly so your subject can have a natural smile or natural appearance.
- Are there shadows going across your subject’s face from the leaves of the tree they are under or the building they are standing next to? The camera’s flash exposure system will properly balance the available light and light output from the flash to produce a more pleasing portrait and gently fill in the shadows.
| Image of person without flash outdoors. |
Image of person with flash outdoors. |
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Tip: Use this setting when shooting indoors with bright windows behind your subject. In this situation your subject is usually underexposed or dark since the camera’s Auto flash exposure system is tricked by the bright light from behind your subject. The flash won’t fire since it senses a lot of light not knowing your subject is in front of it. Setting the flash to Fill-in ensures the flash will fire every time regardless of the light level.
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