If you learn how (and when) to override when your camera uses flash, you will have more creative control over how your pictures turn out and in many cases get pictures that are better than if you let your camera decide when to use the flash itself.
Case 1: Using Flash on Bright Sunny Days
Now, you don't need flash on bright sunny days, technically. But there are a couple of times when forcing your camera to use flash will get you better pictures. A) When you are taking a picture of someone, and their face is in the shadows. Using flash here will brighten up their face. B) Even if your subject is in full light, sometimes forcing your camera to use flash will brighten and saturate colours, making the photo much more impactful.
Here, I asked Helen to take a picture of me and Emma and just let the camera decide whether to use the flash or not. Technically the picture turned out. You can make out both mine and Emma's face, but check out the next photo!
Here, I asked Helen to "force" the camera to use flash. Check out how the flash brightens up the colours (of anything close enough for it to light up) and brighten up our faces out of the shadows. Now the flash isn't strong enough to brighten up things in the background, but this, in a way, helps to make your subject stand out from the background!
Case 2: Not using Flash in low-light
And when you're taking a picture in low-light, your camera is going to want to use flash. But letting your camera use flash in some of these cases will obliterate the mood of the shot. For instance, I could have let my camera use flash while I took this picture of my daughter making her Birthday wish, but forcing the camera not to use flash and taking the picture by nothing but the light of the candle preserved the atmospheric feel of the picture. [Now, taking pictures in low-light situations is not always easy. I'll probably write something up next week about this, and link it here.]
Here, I manually disabled flash on my camera to take this shot. Sure, if I had let the camera use flash, I would of had a brightly lit capture, but I would have lost the atmosphere of the dark room lit only by candle light. Now, not all shots like this turn out, but its a fun challenge to try to capture low-light scenes like these and a real treat when they turn out.
Case 3: Using available (directional) lighting
The other thing about using flash (especially if you are using the built-in flash on your camera, or an external flash attached to your camera) is that . . . A) The light is always coming from the same position, so your pictures end up looking the same after a while, and B) The flash ends up lighting up both sides of people's faces evenly, so the faces end up looking wide. Where as having direction light, that is light from one side, lights one side of the face more than the other, making people's faces look a little more slim. [Now, if you get an external flash and use it off camera, then you can use flash, but get directional lighting. I'll probably write something up eventually about this, and link it here.]
How to do it!
Now, most cameras have different flash modes that you can choose from. They are usually as follows . . .
1) Auto - Which lets the camera choose when to use flash or not.
2) Force Flash On - Which forces the flash to fire when taking a picture. This is useful to make it fire on bright days when you want to use the flash to fill in shadows or make colours really pop-out!
3) Force Flash Off - Which forces the flash not to fire, even if you are taking a picture in a low-light situation, such as when you want to take a picture by candle light, a window or if you are not allowed to use flash.
And many cameras also have additional flash modes such as . . .
4) Red eye reduction - Which fires a pre-flash in order to shrink people's pupils down so to reduce "red-eye" in the final picture, although sometimes you want to turn this off if you have a "blinker" (A person or pet that blinks their eyes whenever there is a pre-flash.)
5) Slow Shutter Flash - Which leaves the shutter open a little longer so that when you take pictures in a dark room or outdoors, instead of just getting your subject and foreground lit up, it will try to capture the background which is often much more dimly lit.
Now, what you need to do is learn how to force your camera to use or not use flash when you decide to. Read your manual and learn how to do this. It may mean taking your camera off the fully auto "green" mode, and using a less intelligent "program" mode such as "P", "Av" or "Tv" mode.
Links
Here are some useful links on the subject.
1) KenRockwell - Fill Flash -- What Ken Rockwell has to say about Fill Flash. [ http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/fill-flash.htm ]
2) Kodak - Flash, Fill Flash and Flash Off -- Kodak's quick and concise guide on the subject. [ http://www.kodak.com/eknec/PageQuerier.jhtml?pq-path=38/13915/39/6370/421&pq-locale=en_US ]
Take care,
Glen -- DigicamJunkie.com
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