Outdoor flash photography

[SBCmetroguy]

Okay, I'm not really up on the topic of flash but I'm trying to learn as much as I can.

When outdoors at night, where there is little light given, will a shoe-mounted flash (such as the 430EX) make your shot appear unnatural? I'm not a fan of flash photography outdoors, mainly because I've never tried it.

Say I'm photographing an outdoor Christmas display. Would I use the flash to achieve a better-lit shot, or would it kill my shot?

I see guys walking around with shoe-mounted flashes attached for night photography, but I've just always been afraid to try it.

Should I overcome this fear? :) I think my camera looks cooler with my big lens and the flash attached anyway.

[Curtis N]

It sounds to me like a little practice and experimentation is in order.

The question is more complicated than whether or not to use flash. You can control both the ambient light and the flash portion of each exposure, and getting the desired result usually depends on how you manage both elements.

If you have a tripod and a stationary subject, the creative possibilities are endless. If you're holding the camera and shooting people, then effective use of low ambient light becomes a great challenge.

There are a couple of concepts that you need to wrap your brain around in order to use flash effectively. The first is the inverse square law and the phenomenon of how light falls off rapidly as distance from the light source increases. The second is the way shutter speed affects ambient exposure without affecting flash exposure.

Overcome your fear, and experiment. The worst that can happen is that you make a few thousand shots that don't turn out the way you intended. Learn from them, delete, and try again.

[SBCmetroguy]

Thanks, Curtis. I've had to experiment with everything else to get to where I am now, so why not! :)