Experimenting with my new flash!

[Leslie and Halas]

A couple of weeks ago, I bought an external flash; the Canon Speedlite 430 EX.  I haven't had much time to play with it yet, but I like what I've seen so far.  I can set it at different angles, so I can bounce the flash off of the ceiling, off of the subject, or anywhere in between.  When I took a few photos inside one evening, I noticed that aiming the flash at the ceiling produced the most natural results.  I've included a few samples here, just to demonstrate the difference.  I still have a lot of learning and experimenting to do, but I can already tell that this will be a huge improvement from the integrated flash on the camera.

This first photo is with the flash aimed straight at the subject.  The second one is with the flash aimed at the ceiling.  I think the second one has a more natural look, closer to how the naked eye sees the subject.  I can really see that in the giant tennis ball in the center and the purple toy on the right side of the frame.

This is a series of photos of Halas.  The first one is with the flash aimed straight at him, and then I angled it up a notch each time.  For the last shot, it was aimed at the ceiling.  I still feel like the higher the flash was aimed, the more natural the picture, although I think his eyes are too dark in the last one, where the flash was aimed straight at the ceiling.

I mostly just wanted to share for those of us who have been considering an external flash.  But since I'm just figuring out how to work with this, I welcome any comments or suggestions on how to get the most out of it.

[Raymond, Ellie & Abby Doodle]

The top two pics are great but you are right the depth of the last two are more appealing. If I may make a suggestion use a reflector to create some fill light in the eyes of your subject. A plain piece of white paper or card stock would do. Just keep it under your camera and reflect the light back onto your subjects face or cute little mug whatever the case may be.

[Richard Crowe]

RACCOON EYES...

When you aim the flash at the ceiling it becomes an overhead light and does cause shadows, especially under the eyebrows.. The simple way to get around this is to reflect a portion of the light from the flash straight toward the subject.

Many photographers simply tape a white index card to the rear of the flash tube. This creates a dual lighting setup. The majority of the light is bounced from the ceiling but, some of the light is reflected off the card towards the subject filling the shadows.

An even better solution is to fabricate a reflector/diffuser:
http://super.nova.org/DPR/DIY01/

I personally use the Joe Demb Flash Diffuser Pro www.dembflashproducts.com

The variable angle of the reflector allows you to use bounce flash when there is nothing off which to bounce or if, in the case of this Chinese store, where the ceiling color would impact the color of your lighting to a great degree..

[Ann Kendig]

That is good info about the bouncing the flash off the ceiling and getting a color tint off the ceiling if the ceiling is some color other than white.

Richard I went to the links about reflectors and wanted to try using them. I printed the picture off of the home made one and traced the general shape onto construction paper. Tore back cover off of one the CGC training manuals to make it and just attached it using a rubber band to the external flash. Shot some photos and like the results.

Shot of nephew straight out of camera bouncing flash off of white construction paper reflector. No read eye or squinty eyes.

[Ann Kendig]

Did not get fancy with velcro. Just cut up construction paper and used rubber band. Got good results using it. May have to look into the Demb reflector in the future. Added some photos using the home made reflector did a little touch up in post processing also.

[Leslie and Halas]

Great results! I messed around a little bit the other night with just a piece of paper, and I could see a difference. So I'm anxious to try it with something a little more solid, like you did. Thanks for posting a pic of your camera with it attached.