shadows???

how do you get rid of the shadow halo around the subject on vertical shots? i pulled her away from the background but this did not help. also i can't seem to make my pictures small enough to post. i save for web and change the size. what am i doing wrong?

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I normally size the picture to 800 on the long side and then save for the web. When you save for the web you have to reduce the quality of the image until it gets under the 100K max here.

I think some people use diffusers to soften the light coming from the flash. I'v seen some examples of this in place and seems to work real well. I'm not sure if thats helpfull or not, but I hope it was.

thanks for walking me through uploading my picture- it finally worked. here is an example of the shadow i'm having trouble with.

you can try to lessen the shadow by balancing the flash with the ambient light. This would help some, but to get rid of the halo completely you probably need a flash bracket that keeps the flash directly above the lens, even in portrait mode. Or two off-camera flashes.

If you are using the on-board flash, or an external flash but straight on the you will need to move your subject away from the BG at least the distance the subject is tall. That means that if your subject is 5 ft tall then you will need to be a minimum of 5 ft. from any reflective BG. As long as the shadow can hit the floor or out of the frame before it reflects then you are far enough away.

What camera are you using? And what flash? If the flash is the built-in unit then you have a whole different set of problems as opposed to the hot-shoe mounted flash units. But the basic problem you are experiencing is too harsh a light directly at the subject. I use either a Lightsphere II or a Lumiquest ProMax bounce unit with my 550EX flash.

Cute baby!

I am using the built in flash to my digital rebel. I just bought excaliber 3200. Is it possible to get rid of the shadow using what I have?

Well, while you experts make excellent suggestions on the shadow, I have to say I love the shot of the baby!!!

That's a lovely shot!

The reason that you get hard shadows with flash, is if the light is all concentrated pointing in the same direction, and there is a big difference in the brightness of the illuminated area, and the ambient light levels.

There are two main techniques for diffusing the light - the first is to use something in front of the flash to spread the light source. For the built in flash, there is only one option - that's the 9.99 Lumiquest soft screen. I haven't used one, so don't know how effective it is, but it should definitely show an improvement.

The second technique which isn't possible with the built in flash, is to bounce the light - most commonly off a ceiling, so the whole of the ceiling becomes the light source - you'll often see photographers with a flash pointing up, with a white index card attached - this bounces some of the light forward, whilst most of the light comes from above.

The last technique you could use, is to raise all the ambient light levels - e.g. taking shots in bright daylight - though you can still have the problem of shadows in daylight!

Hope that gives you some insight into things you can do to alleviate shadows - basically, with the built in flash, a diffuser (lumiquest soft screen), and raising ambient light levels are your main options.

Lumiquest sells a diffusor specially desinged for built-in flashes. Never used it. Certainly dos some job at least on the lightings. Perhaps not enough for the shadows.

Hope this helps,
Cheers, Olivier

I'm lost.. it seems that your logic would be correct if you were shuuting the subject at a 45 degree angle. but i dont see how having someone 6ft away from a wall will get rid of shadow cast

thanks for all the imput. I will play around with it some more. Is there anything I can do to help the shadows using the excalibur and my internal flash?

I'm not familiar with the Excalibur 3200 system but it would appear that you can definitely mitigate the shadows with it. You will need to figure out how to trip the unit with your camera. I would suggest a Wein Safe-sync as a good $50 investment that will protect your camera and give you a PC attachment capability for the Digital Rebel. You will NOT be able to successfully trip the Excalibur with the on-board flash IMO. Hopefully you have an umbrella, diffuser, stands, etc with the Excalibur system. That will let you move and modify the light to accomplish what I think you want.

yes i do have an umbrella and stand but not a sync cord yet- that's my next investment. my camera flash does trigger the slave on the excalibur though.