SX130 flash help...

I upgraded my wife's p&s for Christmas (ho, ho, ho) to the SX130. I used it to shoot a few shots of her and her friends last night and the flash is hmmm....harsh. I have a package of small Sticky Filters for pop ups and dug them out today try one out. However, the instructions clearly state in caps "DO NOT USE THE FULL AUTO 'GREEN' SETTING!!' Lovely...my wife enjoys taking pictures and keeps the p&s in her purse and does quite well, but she's a green box shooter, period. "You can fix it in one of them programs you play with for hours on end" sez she. So what I'm trying find out if there is any other way/method/product that calms down the flash? Thanks...


....old

Nope. Not in Green Box. The whole point of Green Box is that the camera will adjust everything, including the flash output level. If you're in Green Box and using something over the flash to cut the intensity, the camera will just use more power to try to overcome your filter's effect. Now, not knowing what these things you got are, if they diffuse and increase the apparent area of the flash, they might tone down the "harshness" (pronounced shadow) in indoor situations where there's something else for the scattered light to bounce off and provide secondary illumination.

Thanks, I figured as much but thought somebody might know a work around. I might have to experiment a bit with the filters....

.http://www.bhphotovide​o.com …ky_Filters_for_​Flash.html

...or go to plan 'b'

...old

All those will do is balance the flash' light to the ambient light; they're not really designed to diffuse the flash. They won't work in Green Box because the camera will set white balance to Flash when it uses the flash, and they'll mess up the colour under those conditions. When you're controlling the shot, you can use them to balance the flash and ambient light without the background (under ambient light) looking strange (orange under incandescent lights, for instance). But that balancing is achieved by metering for the background and using the flash to help light the principal subject, not by the filter actually reducing the output of the flash. You'd have to use manual flash level controls to do that.

Thank you for the lesson, now I understand the warning.

...old