Halloween in Hawaii

I shot these photos from world famous Waikiki:

Hi

The direct flash emphasized the 1st part of the car, leaving its back dim. On the 2nd pic you catched a great face expression and a funny costume! the direct flash created the same affect, leaving the background without any light.

Is there any way of fixing this without having a good asistant carry a remote flash?

I didn't want to be too hot with the on camera flash.

The best way of course is to use a tripod and longer exposures using no flash. Another way I know is to use a "soft flash" that will be target to the ceiling (best at indoors) or to use photoshop to fix the photos. I played a bit the 1st photo using ACDSEE - I adjusted the levels and curves.

HOSTED PHOTO
please log in to view hosted photos in full size.

osho32 wrote in post #2228650
The best way of course is to use a tripod and longer exposures using no flash. Another way I know is to use a "soft flash" that will be target to the ceiling (best at indoors) or to use photoshop to fix the photos. I played a bit the 1st photo using ACDSEE - I adjusted the levels and curves.

I agree that the best way is use that tripod and a longer exposure, play with the idea of it, watch out for motion blur as cars and background people will blur at slower exposures.

Another way to adjust an image is creating layers on top of the image using a luminosity and playing with the amount of viewable afftect until you get it bumbed. Please remeber for every bumb, affect, Levels or curves adjustment you will get or add noise to the image, here is the same image with a full f stop added, and then noise reduced by .04% using a center spot softfocus style blur. Notice the headlight Halo affect of the blur, I used the guy accrossed the street shooting you as a refference point.

Your first image is first I hope this works,


Chas

HOSTED PHOTO
please log in to view hosted photos in full size.

HOSTED PHOTO
please log in to view hosted photos in full size.

The biggest problem I see is highly reflective objects in the background such as the license plates on the cars and the reflective sticker on the windshield of the Batman Croba. Those things will fool a flash/camera every time and it will shut off before enough light is thrown. I shoot mostly drag racing pictures and when I see a front license plate, I set the flash compensation for to two stops overexposure, which is as far as I can go, and hope for the best. The other problem with one of the other shots on your Photobucket page (http://i55.photobucket​.com/albums/g1.../IMG_​0002b.jpg) is awhite object in the foreground. Again, it fools the flash/camera into thinking there has been enough light and shuts it down prematurely. The white tee shirt on the right is influencing the shot.

I hope this is helpful. Flash outdoors at night is always a challenge. It's hard to focus and those darned reflective things keep cropping up.

Thanks for your comments Jim, Akchas, and osho32.

I'm thinking of getting Photoshop elements, any thoughts?

Thanks Jim for IDing the "Batmobile", I first saw him last year.