Taking Better Pictures Indoors (Archive)

This topic comes on behalf of Wendy in Oklahoma.

Have you ever noticed that your built-in flash on your camera often does not illuminate your subject very well? At other times, the flash is too bright and your subject ends up with details "washed-out". And if you turn the flash off, you get blurry pictures. "What's wrong?" you say, and I say, "Here's why".

First off, I will cover the flash. The built-in flash on your camera is only effective for relatively short-distances, usually only about 5-6 feet at best. In fact, the flash is only good for that specific distance. When you step closer to your subject, the fixed-power flash is too strong and causes your subject's face to lose details in the highlights.

Now when you turn the flash off, you usually end up with blurred pictures where there was movement in your scene. In auto mode, the camera automatically makes adjustments for you, hence the name. Most of the time, this adjustment is in the form of exposure time. To let more light in, the camera extends the time the shutter is open; and in this scenario, the exposure ends up being too long for a crisp picture and picks up both camera movement and subject movement.

So, now for the solution. All SLR cameras and most high-end point & shoot cameras have a "hot shoe" mount on top of the camera for an external flash. Name brand camera companies all make external flash units specifically for their cameras. Many after-market companies make flash units compatible with name brands as well. My personal preference is to stick with products made by the same company as my camera. After-market flash units my have to be set-up certain ways to work properly with your camera unless it is made specifically for your camera model.

Today's flash units are E-TTL; meaning electronic-through the lens. Put simply, it means the flash and camera work in auto mode together to give you the best result. The reason this is better than your built-in flash is that the external flash adjusts its output based off of of light and distance. Don't try to understand how this works, it all happens inside the camera without any effort on your part.

When shopping for a flash; make sure that the flash works with your camera, make sure flash unit has swivel (so you can direct flash angle as needed), make sure it is E-TTL. You can find new flash units anywhere from $200-$500 depending on the brand and model.

For those of you with a simple point and shoot, you will just have to work with what you got.

I hope you found this article to be helpful. Feel free to add a comment if you have any questions or on this topic, or suggestions for future topics. Thank you all!