A pleasant surprise - flash balance on a holiday pic

[Brad Johnson]

I took this snapshop of a friend and her son over Christmas.  Nothing spectacular composure-wise, but the flash balance took me by surprise.  Alignment of the planets, shift in the cosmis constant, whatever - the lighting balance turned out darn near perfect.  To bad it was pure dumb luck.  I couldn't replicate this in a studio with multiple flashes, an assistant, and a light meter.

It was a really small room painted satin white and I was standing next to a stark white fridge.  As a rule fo thumb I always use bounce flash indoors.  This time the flash was pointed right at the fridge.  I guess it acted like a huge primary reflector, giving nice offset front light.  Since it had a mottled surface, it also acted as a big diffuser, bathing the entire room in light, but with a greater percentage bouncing off the opposite wall which acted like a secondary reflector.  Throw in me not standing somewhere that created shadows and it all turned out really nice.

A final note - I am perpetually impressed by Canon L-series glass.  The pic you see here is pretty darn sharp, but you should see the native image.  I've enlarged it to the equivalent of 20x30 before beginning to see a loss of fine detail.  Absolutely razor sharp!  Chris (the guy, her son) lives in Tennessee and doesn't get to come home very often.  I made the both an 8x10 as a New Year's gift. 

By the way, Walgreen's (around here, at least) uses Fuji printing equipment and makes extremely good prints from digital sources.  Plus, the 8x10's were only $4 each vs the $10-$12 I used to pay for photographic enlargements.

Brad

[crt360]

That did turn out nice.  I guess you will have to start taking a large, white refrigerator (with mottled finish) along with you for photo shoots.  Maybe you could just take the door. 

[Dannyboy]

So that is you at phototakers.com.  I opened this thread and I realized I had seen this picture somewhere before.  Whatever you did, it worked very well.  Evenly lit with little shadow.  Of course, if you're like me, you'll never be able to do it again...unless you bring that fridge with you everywhere you go.

I just got a lens for the R4 I got from my aunt a few months ago and I'm tying to get those figured out before I bother with any kind of flash.

[Brad Johnson]

So that is you at phototakers.com.

Yup!  I spread misery equally over several areas of interest.

Of course, if you're like me, you'll never be able to do it again...unless you bring that fridge with you everywhere you go.

Don't think I haven't been looking for a collapsable reflector with that kind of finish!  I haven't cruised B&H yet, but surely somone makes a knockdown reflector that would do the job.  In the meantime I'm saving up for a 580EX w/diffuser.  My office has one and I "borrowed" it one day.  Wow!

I just got a lens for the R4 I got from my aunt a few months ago and I'm tying to get those figured out before I bother with any kind of flash.

Flash is your friend.  I wish I'd started using fill flash a lot sooner.  Now I always use it, even in broad daylight.  People think I'm nuts but it sure helps fill in the shadows - especially on days with bright, direct, overhead sun.

Brad

[cosine]

Very nice picture.

All the portraits my family takes (especially ones taken by my dad) always turn out underexposed. I've gotten pretty good at fixing the exposure with our cheap photo editing software. 

[Brad Johnson]

Just to show how crystal clear the original pic is, here is an extreme crop.  This would be the equivalent of the original blown up to poster sized. You can just start to see the details becoming ever-so-slightly indistinct.  And this was taken on a lowly 6.1 Mp camera (Canon Digital Rebel - 300d).  Just goes to prove that megapixels don't necessarily equal clarity.

Brad

[mfree]

I've got a photo floating around somewhere of two of my friends at a halloween party, taken outside... I was originally playing around with my old Olympus 1.3MP camera because it's got a *beautifully* noise-free CCD and takes nice shots in low light, like the candle-light we had going.

I managed to take a picture on the trailing end of someone else's flash. The balance came off like yours, just right. It's too bad it was just a plain-jane 1024x768 photo.

[brimic]

Nice work.
I seemed to be cursed with every picture I take having 'red eyes.'
Photography was not my calling in life

[Ron]

I seemed to be cursed with every picture I take having 'red eyes.'

Often cameras will have a setting to eliminate that from happening.

Most simple photo editing programs also have ways of getting rid of the effect also.

What gets me is glare off glasses, how do you keep that from happening? Can you eliminate it with editing?

I have the program that came with my Digital Rebel, an old version of Elements and Irfanview.

Not to hijack the thread

Great picture by the way!

My avatar came about the same way, my friend Amy and I took pictures of each other at the trail head after a three day hike and the lighting was just like you said, the stars were aligned.