More experimenting with on-camera speedlight

My daughter wanted more "glamor" photos to show to her friends (hey, dad's got a camera so he can automatically take perfect photos of anything ). I was looking for an excuse to experiment with a speedlight outdoors some more so what the heck. I didn't much care for the results the first time I tried this, but I'm liking these a lot more. For starters I had my daughter use some powder on her forehead to cut down on reflection, and after the first trial I learned I had the flash too hot. I shot these with my Canon 450D, Canon 50mm f1.8, and Sigma EF-50 DG ST speedlight mounted on the camera. For the shots in the woods FEC at about -1 looked best, and for the ones by the lake (in the sun) FEC at 0 looked good.

(She looks so sweet in these photos. I feel sorry for the poor boy who falls for that - she's really mean as a snake )


1.

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Nice shots, really like #2. Excellent exposure in #4 with the full sun and fill flash.

I like #4 best of these. The lighting is much better. I think if you use your flash on-cam,it should only be used just to add some pop to the photo. #1and 2 are not balanced very well. You could have upped the ambient about a stop and gave the overall photos more balance.
Check out this video for an example of what I'm referring to. http://www.youtube.com​/watch?v=5xnSZfaJlHs

Much better than before. I like #2.

Think of hotshoe flash as a tool to mitigate a bad lighting situation. When you have a cooperative subject posing for you, think about ways to create a good lighting situation instead. Think open shade, cloudy days, golden hour, window light, that sort of thing. Then you can ditch the flash or dial it back so it provides catchlights and not much else.

Very good photos...Even with powder you still got some "face-shine"...But they look a lot better than if you hadn't used flash at all...Back it down a little next time or diffuse it some...Mean or not, she's very pretty.

Whoty, I watched that video link and see what you're saying. In the case of my photos I had actually done some test exposures of the woods first and set the camera to what I thought looked best. I'm sure I don't have the artistic eye of a professional, but for better or worse I got pretty close to the results I was trying for. If I get another chance I'll lighten the background up and see if I like that better.

Thanks Curtis. I've read through the links in your signature and learned a lot from them. About the only time I ever used to use a flash was Christmas morning, and I was so bad with it that the results looked like they were done with a cheap point-n-shoot (or worse) - I'd have been better off going to the green square but was always too stubborn to resort to that.

Anyway, thanks for the comments. I feel like I'm finally starting to get it (now I need to win the lottery and get some better equipment !!!).

Groundloop, (Why do I think you used to fly tail draggers? )

This is probably the cheapest way to experiment with creative flash photography.

When using flash on camera outside think of it as fill light. There's a post on my blog (www.dmwfotos.wordpress​.com) that illustrates how it works with off camera flash in a modifier and HSS. There are other approaches as well.

dmward wrote in post #14897267
Groundloop, (Why do I think you used to fly tail draggers? )

Yes I did and yes I have (tailwheel failed to latch).

groundloop wrote in post #14897280
Yes I did and yes I have (broken tailwheel - failed to latch).

Had a J-3, but never had it swap ends on me.

Anyway, invest in a long cable and then have a blast playing with your flash.