Using high synch fill flash to improve photos of people in Hawaii

Lori and Kathryn at the Polynesian Village on Oahu

The left and right photos above were taken with the exact same camera settings, only the left included light from a flash.  You can tell that the girls are in a shaded area as the tree above them reduced the available light.  I exposed for the background and took two photos, one with (left) and the other without (right) flash.

In order to keep the aperture as low as possible (to maximize flash distance), I needed to use a shutter speed faster than the synch speed (1/200th of a second).  My camera has a high synch speed (HSS) function that allows the flash to fire at shutter speeds higher than the normal maximum synch speed.  By turning it on I could then shoot flash at shutter speeds higher than this.  Nikons use a menu feature called Auto FP.  You can see it in the image below.

I shot the photo with a shutter speed of 1/640th of a second.  By turning on the auto FP mode the camera allowed me to use flash at the higher setting.  Without it, the camera would automatically prevent the shutter speed from rising above 1/200th of a second.

I have used high-speed synch functions with a variety of fast shutter speeds and I have to say that it resolves the issue of using fill flash when such values are required.  The main advantage is that you can use wide-open aperture settings that permit the flash to impact the scene at greater distances.  This is especially valuable when using a low-powered flash or when your subject is farther away.  It is not compatible with all flash units or the built-in flash.

Afterwards, I turned off the auto FP mode back to the regular synch speed.  It does not affect the flash when using lower shutter speeds.  At faster speeds, the flash may have a reduced power output.  So far, that hasn't been a problem.

Thanks for reading.

Eric Svendsen     www.ericspix.com

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