Fill-in with flash

Although it doesn’t soften the quality of harsh midday light, a burst of fill flash can open up shadows to provide a more pleasing, balanced exposure. The key to making natural-looking shots is to ensure that the fill-in light is subtle; you don’t want the artificial light to overpower the natural light, and it shouldn’t be obvious that you’ve used it. The idea is to expose for the highlights – if there’s time, switch to spot-metering for precise measurement, but be aware of the tone of the area you’re metering from (you’ll need to add a little more exposure if the subject’s lighter than mid-tone, for instance). You then let the flash pop some life back into the dark areas. Today’s flashes are generally very advanced, with effective automatic fill-in modes. However, for the most part they tend to produce an obviously ‘flashed’ look, with shadows brought up to a similar exposure level as the lighter areas. Try reducing the output further for a more natural result.

Set up a test

It’s worth doing your own run of test shots to begin understanding how your flash will react in different lighting situations. First, get hold of a white subject, a dark subject and mid-tone subject (visit your local toy shop and pick up some soft toys – they’re ideal). Head outside on a clear day, position each one in turn within flash range and fire off a set of frames, changing the flash exposure each time (make sure you allow time for your flash to fully recharge between shots). Start with a regular flash exposure, then decrease its output gradually over the next four or five frames, until you reach -2EV. Do this for each of the three subjects, making sure the ambient lighting conditions are consistent throughout. You can then look at the shots on your computer to determine what level of fill-in flash you prefer for that given lighting condition.

Shoot into the sun

Automatic balanced fill-in modes on flashes come into their own when you’re shooting into the sun. Here, you don’t want the fill-in light to be too subtle, or you’ll end up with an underexposed main subject. A well-balanced flash-lit portrait taken against a clear blue sky can look stunning, and it’s also worth seeking out a situation where you can isolate a backlit person against a shadowy area; their rimlit hair and skin will appear to glow against the dark background (just be wary of the camera being tricked into overexposure by such a backdrop), while the burst of flash brings the exposure on the face and body in shadow back to the correct level. To achieve more of a surreal quality in an outdoor shot, try underexposing the ambient light (spot meter a mid-tone in the background and reduce the exposure by 0.7EV to 1EV as starting point); this will make your flash-exposed foreground subject ‘pop’ from its surroundings.

Boost an interior

The main problem you’ll encounter when shooting indoors is the mixture of light that’s usually present. Depending on the location, you could end up with fluorescent, tungsten, daylight and flash providing an ‘intriguing’ mix of green, orange and blue light (depending on your selection of white balance). You might like this effect, but equally you might prefer to produce a more natural blend of flash-lit foreground subject and a background lit by tungsten or fluorescent lighting. In this case, you’ll need to place a strip of orange warming gel (for tungsten) or green gel (for fluorescent) over your flash. You can then select the matched white balance preset on the camera, and both light sources will be ‘corrected’ at the same time.