Does fill flash always make a difference?

Josh, Nora, Emma, and Chanelle photographed with and without flash.

While I firmly believe that fill flash in outdoor portraits improves the final image, it can be said that it is not always needed.  The above photos demonstrates this, as the image quality of both photos colour, contrast, and saturation is good.  The top image was taken without flash while the bottom was.

If you look closely, you can see where flash made a difference.  The shadows are filled (look at the necks of both adults), there is a catchlight in the eyes where flash was used, and the clothing isn't quite as dark.  However, if you were to see both photos independently of each other, there would be little cause for criticism, aside from the position of the members.

Most of the time fill flash makes more of a difference than this.  Sunny days, bright backgrounds, flat lighting, and shooting in a shaded area all tend to produce better results when fill flash is used.  Nine times out of ten you will end up with a much better photo with flash than without.

In this case, the improvement was nominal.  I set my flash to two-thirds of a stop below 0 and the flash exposure setting.  This allows significant fill without blowing out areas in the image.  I also expose for the background, which usually means a manual exposure setting, although you can get by in shutter priority mode.  The day's lighting was soft due to the high cloud cover; there was very little shadow was cast.

I got some nice photos of my son and his family and we had a nice outing with the grandchildren.  The mountain ash tree's colour made a perfect background for the setting.  It was just part of a great visit with them all.

Thanks for reading.

Eric Svendsen     www.ericspix.com

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