For the first time on this blog, I am able to post something that might possibly help someone out there.
The Disaster
What does a combination of people in dull indoors and a basic point-and-shoot camera do? Well, to put it simply, the combination is sort of disastrous. That may depend on whose opinion you take, but most would say that the only way to get photos with a decent exposure would be to fire a flash.
Simple enough, right? Just fire the damn flash and the problem is solved! Not really. Using an on-camera flash can sometimes make pretty people look not-so-pretty especially when their heads are turned sidewards. Harsh light, strong shadows behind the nose, bright spots of light on parts of the face, background mostly still engulfed in darkness, lots of problems!
"I look fat", "My face looks oily", "Why are my eyes red?", "Why's my hair all white?", "My nose looks weird"... and the list goes on.
Some Expensive Solutions
The most obvious solution would be to use a remotely fired off-camera flash or simply, better indoor lighting. The moment the source of light is off the camera's line of view, things look a lot better. But we can't control indoor light in most cases and you definitely cannot take the flash off a point-and-shoot.
Indoors would have a ceiling. Sometimes high, sometimes low, but there is a ceiling. Now, having a DSLR with an external flash, one would simply "bounce" the light off a nearby wall or a ceiling by rotating the flash head to the appropriate angle. Once again, this is not possible with a point-and-shoot flash.
My Solution
It is ridiculously simple! Simply hold a mirror in front of your flash at an angle such that the light from the flash reflects up towards the ceiling. As easy as that! The result is a nice, even, soft diffused light coming from above that suddenly makes everything look beautiful!
I did just that, and here's the result.
The result is staggering! The only change was that I introduced a small reflecting surface in front of the flash. The colors are better, the lighting is uniform, there are no harsh shadows and there are no spots of light. The images above are straight out of the camera with no enhancements.
So that's my little trick I could come up with to deal with the problems caused by the pop-up flash on my camera. I am sure there might be better solutions for this problem but then I wrote this post just to put the information out that, "Hey, there are ways to improve the quality of the pictures taken from your boring point-and-shoot camera!" I know a lot of people would benefit from such information, so a big shout-out to the guys who make beautiful tutorials fixing everyday problems with photography!
Problem Scenarios
Mirror Size
The downside of this technique is it would not work in all cases. You'd need a pretty decent sized mirror, maybe 3-4 inches wide and at least 2-3 inches tall, to avoid the flash light to spill around the edges of the mirror. Do not hold the mirror at too shallow an angle or the light would spill over the top leading to strange looking photos. Too tight an angle would cause the flash to hit your own face, blinding you and not lighting the subject at all. Also, there's the problem with the ceiling itself.
Ceiling Height
As the ceiling goes higher, the intensity of light goes down. The flash light needs to first reflect off the mirror, losing some energy in the process and then has to travel the distance to the ceiling, get diffused (losing a lot more energy and intensity), and travel all the way back to the subject's height to hit it. That's quite some distance for a weak pop-up flash. So you'd probably need to set the flash power to full if you have such an option on your camera.
Ceiling Color
The color of the ceiling also plays an important part. A white ceiling reflects the most light and also does no color change to the light itself. A red ceiling (just an example) would cause the subject to glow red which in some cases gets interesting too! A black ceiling would most probably not reflect anything at all..
Bounce it off a side wall!
But why bounce it off just the ceiling? Hey, you have walls too! You can angle the mirror to bounce the flash light onto a wall next to the subject and you get some stunning shots of soft lighting from the side. In some cases, the effect looks like the person is standing next to an open window, but you know that's just solid wall! What's more, you can even use a cheap reflector (everyone's gotta get one!) to reflect light back onto the subject in case there is no wall nearby!
Enjoy!
So while the solution is not the best one, it's effectively cheap and works in a lot of scenarios encountered with indoor photography. Hope my little information was useful in understanding the Complexities of Life. Did I say Life? I meant Light. Have fun clicking away with that cheap little point-and-shoot of yours!
The Disaster
What does a combination of people in dull indoors and a basic point-and-shoot camera do? Well, to put it simply, the combination is sort of disastrous. That may depend on whose opinion you take, but most would say that the only way to get photos with a decent exposure would be to fire a flash.
Simple enough, right? Just fire the damn flash and the problem is solved! Not really. Using an on-camera flash can sometimes make pretty people look not-so-pretty especially when their heads are turned sidewards. Harsh light, strong shadows behind the nose, bright spots of light on parts of the face, background mostly still engulfed in darkness, lots of problems!
"I look fat", "My face looks oily", "Why are my eyes red?", "Why's my hair all white?", "My nose looks weird"... and the list goes on.
Some Expensive Solutions
The most obvious solution would be to use a remotely fired off-camera flash or simply, better indoor lighting. The moment the source of light is off the camera's line of view, things look a lot better. But we can't control indoor light in most cases and you definitely cannot take the flash off a point-and-shoot.
Indoors would have a ceiling. Sometimes high, sometimes low, but there is a ceiling. Now, having a DSLR with an external flash, one would simply "bounce" the light off a nearby wall or a ceiling by rotating the flash head to the appropriate angle. Once again, this is not possible with a point-and-shoot flash.
My Solution
It is ridiculously simple! Simply hold a mirror in front of your flash at an angle such that the light from the flash reflects up towards the ceiling. As easy as that! The result is a nice, even, soft diffused light coming from above that suddenly makes everything look beautiful!
I did just that, and here's the result.
The result is staggering! The only change was that I introduced a small reflecting surface in front of the flash. The colors are better, the lighting is uniform, there are no harsh shadows and there are no spots of light. The images above are straight out of the camera with no enhancements.
So that's my little trick I could come up with to deal with the problems caused by the pop-up flash on my camera. I am sure there might be better solutions for this problem but then I wrote this post just to put the information out that, "Hey, there are ways to improve the quality of the pictures taken from your boring point-and-shoot camera!" I know a lot of people would benefit from such information, so a big shout-out to the guys who make beautiful tutorials fixing everyday problems with photography!
Problem Scenarios
Mirror Size
The downside of this technique is it would not work in all cases. You'd need a pretty decent sized mirror, maybe 3-4 inches wide and at least 2-3 inches tall, to avoid the flash light to spill around the edges of the mirror. Do not hold the mirror at too shallow an angle or the light would spill over the top leading to strange looking photos. Too tight an angle would cause the flash to hit your own face, blinding you and not lighting the subject at all. Also, there's the problem with the ceiling itself.
Ceiling Height
As the ceiling goes higher, the intensity of light goes down. The flash light needs to first reflect off the mirror, losing some energy in the process and then has to travel the distance to the ceiling, get diffused (losing a lot more energy and intensity), and travel all the way back to the subject's height to hit it. That's quite some distance for a weak pop-up flash. So you'd probably need to set the flash power to full if you have such an option on your camera.
Ceiling Color
The color of the ceiling also plays an important part. A white ceiling reflects the most light and also does no color change to the light itself. A red ceiling (just an example) would cause the subject to glow red which in some cases gets interesting too! A black ceiling would most probably not reflect anything at all..
Bounce it off a side wall!
But why bounce it off just the ceiling? Hey, you have walls too! You can angle the mirror to bounce the flash light onto a wall next to the subject and you get some stunning shots of soft lighting from the side. In some cases, the effect looks like the person is standing next to an open window, but you know that's just solid wall! What's more, you can even use a cheap reflector (everyone's gotta get one!) to reflect light back onto the subject in case there is no wall nearby!
Enjoy!
So while the solution is not the best one, it's effectively cheap and works in a lot of scenarios encountered with indoor photography. Hope my little information was useful in understanding the Complexities of Life. Did I say Life? I meant Light. Have fun clicking away with that cheap little point-and-shoot of yours!
