Better fishing pictures: Use a fill flash
Published Mar 24th 2006
More ways to improve your fishing photos. This time about using your flash in bright daylight - even in sunshine.
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+  Without fill flash |
+  With fill flash |
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Wrong!
Actually most on-camera flashes are lousy for use in the dark. They are too small, too close to the lens and not flexible enough. For darkness you need an off-camera flash with some muscle.
No, the small flash that most cameras have built-in is actually a lot better for daylight use.
Use the flash when it's light! And the lighter it is, the more you actually need it.
Bright sunshine should immediately make you consider turning on the flash.
The reason is that bright light creates shadows, and most cameras are unable to catch both very light areas and very dark areas equally well in the same image. Since the bright areas are often larger and often very bright, the camera will expose to get them best. The result is a face shadowed by a bill on a cap, a fish in the darkness of a body and other important parts of the image left in utter darkness.
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+  A smile on a dull day |
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What you need is a fill-flash. Light from the flash will help on both these situations. In most cases you can just force turn flash on and shoot. The camera will take care of the rest. Use this function in particular when shooting
- with the sun in front of you as opposed to behind you
- when the light is really dull because of clouds
- when you are somewhere between 2 and 6 meters or 6-18' from your object
You can of course use your flash when it's dark, but the built-in flashes on small cameras are generally not able to do much about a scene in darkness. But if you use your flash, make sure that all subjects are in almost the same distance and neither too far away nor too close.
I also have a small photography site called 500th.net you can visit.
A series
These are all the articles in our series about better fly fishing photography. Read this series and you will learn a lot ebout getting better pictures while fishing. General outdoors pohotographers may also pick up a thing or two...Better fly-fishing pictures
- Reflections. Published March 3rd 2013
- Shadows. Published December 21st 2012
- Compose. Published November 30th 2012
- Fly pictures. Published March 25th 2012
- Close to the surface. Published July 29th 2011
- Waterscapes. Published January 9th 2011
- Pictures of nature. Published March 24th 2010
- Shoot the weather. Published March 15th 2010
- Gear pictures. Published June 16th 2009
- Bent Rods. Published May 2nd 2009
- Clear Water. Published February 15th 2009
- Casting pictures. Published January 29th 2007
- Underexpose. Published October 16th 2006
- Macro. Published August 30th 2006
- Jump!. Published June 21st 2006
- Use a tripod. Published June 1st 2006
- Glorious light. Published May 24th 2006
- Fishy pictures. Published May 4th 2006
- Bring it!. Published April 26th 2006
- Perfect Camera. Published April 9th 2006
- Use a fill flash. Published March 24th 2006
- Go low. Published March 20th 2006
- Go close. Published March 16th 2006
- Histograms not scheduled for publishing yet.
