Cheap Digital Camera UK Flash Tips
Frenchman Chauffour designed the first flash bulb for cameras in 1893 for use by underwater photographer Louis Boutan. It contained magnesium inside a glass bulb filled with oxygen under pressure. A platinum wire heated by passing an electric current through it ignited the magnesium and caused a mini explosion in the bulb.
Things have moved on a long way since then and its now hard to imagine digital camera photography with the use of a flash.
Taking photos using a digital camera with a flash can cause a few problems, as I am sure you know. For example I have not meet anyone how has not at some point came up against the dreaded redeye for instance.
Modern digital cameras let us identify this problem before the prints are made and you can now take such things out in programs such as PhotoShop or Fireworks, so it is now more of an inconvenience than a cost, but we are sure you will agree it is something we can do without.
Below are a few basic digital camera tips that the team here at Cheap Digital Camera UK hope will help you avoid such problems before they happen.
Red-Eye
If you have used your digital camera with its flash or taken flash photos of people or animals with any camera (cheap or expensive)for that matter you will have seen 'red-eye,' those horrible red spots in the eyes. (With animals, the spots can be other colours, such as yellow or green).Red-eye occurs because the digital cameras flash unit is too close to the lens axis: the light goes straight into the eye, and is reflected off the retina right back to the image sensor.
Cheap Digital Camera UK tip
The best and just about only way to eliminate red-eye is to move the flash unit off-camera, away from the lens axis. Obviously you can't do this with built-in flash units, so camera manufacturers generally provide a red-eye-reduction mode that reduces (slightly) red-eye by causing the cameras flash unit to fire several times at low power before the shot is taken, to 'stop-down' the subject's eyes and thus lessen the effect.
The Lumix DMC LC1 camera has a smart way of dealing with this as the flash on this camera can be angled in such a way as to enable the camera user to bounce the flash.(See diagram)
Harsh shadows
Harsh shadows can appear on the faces of subjects when they are photographed in bright sunlight or under florescent lights.Cheap Digital Camera UK tip
Use the fill flash to (lighten) harsh shadows in sunlit outdoor portraits. Most good digital cameras with built-in flash units offer both auto-flash and fill-flash modes.
- Auto-Flash Mode-The flash unit automatically fires when needed in poor lighting conditions.
- Fill-Flash Mode- The flash will fire for every shot, regardless of light level. This is the mode to use to fill-in those harsh shadows in sunlit portraits, as the cameras auto-flash mode won't fire due the high light level.
Distracting Backgrounds
Your subject should always be the star of the show but sometime the background can make them melt into the photograph.Cheap Digital Camera UK tip
You can make the cameras flash more intense than the ambient light (the key light) by adjusting things so the output from the flash is more intense. This is a great way to play-down the distracting background by darkening it.
Manually
First determine the exposure for the ambient light, and then close the cameras lens down one stop from that exposure. Once you have done this, with the cameras flash in manual mode, select the power setting that will produce correct flash exposure at the set aperture.
Automatically
If you have a digital camera that offers flash exposure compensation, just dial -in +1. If you don't, dial -in -1 stop of exposure compensation for the ambient light, using the camera's normal exposure-compensation feature.
In the resulting digital photo, the flash-lit nearby subject will be properly exposed, while the ambient-lit background will be underexposed by one stop.
a good place to buy a Lumix Camera is the Panasonic website as this ensures you will get a great after sales service and free delivery.
What Digital Camera, May 2005 -
'... the Lumix range is one of the best on the market.'
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