Flash in bright sun

Flash is a mood killer.  It flattens features and causes harsh, dark, shadows.  It frequently overrides existing light and leaves backgrounds more that eight or ten feet away, in total darkness. Built-in, so called pop-up flash, is designed to allow amateur snapshots for inclusion in scrapbooks.  Truly, there are many photos that would never have been made had it not been for the pop-up flash.  Having said all that, I will add that if you are serious about making images that have genuine feeling, find the flash control on your camera (with digital you may have to go into the menus) and turn it off.  Learn to take photos using available light by adjusting the camera's controls.  A little blur from subject or camera movement is preferable to pasty faces and hard black shadows.  

The best use of built-in flash on most cameras is outdoors in bright sunlight.  For example, it allows you to shoot pictures of people while they have their backs to the sun.  The flash fills in the shadow details in bright sunlight and does not overwhelm existing lighting—it complements it.  The people who are the subjects of the picture can relax with their eyes open (not squinting into the bright sun).

This creature, that I discovered about twenty feet from my front door, was photographed with a Canon digital single lens reflex (DSLR for short) camera.  The camera has a pop-up flash that, in any mode except automatic, must be activated manually.

The dragonfly itself made the flash necessary as it chose to perch in a location facing the sun.  The flash was used to fill in the harsh shadows and soften the overall contrast of the image.  The focal length of the lens in this case was 400 mm and the image was made from a distance of about six feet.  Digital flash is controlled by a TTL (through the lens) electronic circuit and the camera shuts it down when the proper amount of light is received.

I spotted the dragonfly on my way to get the morning paper, made a mental note of where he was perched. and went back into the house to get the camera.  When I came back out he was gone, but I wasn't concerned as this is a creature that has a definite territory and will almost always return to the exact same spot within minutes.  All I had to do was wait for him.

After I downloaded the images (I made about 50 exposures) to the computer I had to do some research to find out what kind of creature I had captured.  One of my hard and fast rules dealing with students is that they must know what or who they have taken photographs of.  Sometimes with people, it's a fleeting thing and identification after the fact is not possible.  But, with a dragonfly, a computer and a couple of quick questions to navigate the search engine maze was all that was needed.  I also frequently begin with a web site called "whatsthatbug.com" when I am trying to identify an insect

Finally, I would add that there are technical problems introduced with a pop-up flash such as the one found on the camera described above.  The main technical issue is that this type of camera uses a focal plane shutter which will usually not sync with a speed higher than 1/250th of a second.  When the flash is activated, the camera automatically changes the shutter speed to 1/250 which could cause motion blur with a lens as long as 400 mm.