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Flash Diffusion- Indirect Lighting
By sirsnapalot | December 28, 2007
The other day, my mother-in-law asked me to photograph some of her paintings hanging on the wall of their house. The shiny oil finish, however, was reflecting the flash right back at me, and some were behind glass, making the flash reflection even worse.
Direct flash
You can see in the photo above the problem. I thought about it for a few minutes, and got the idea to deflect the flash away from the painting and off the ceiling. I asked my mother-in-law if she had a compact mirror, the type women typically carry in their purse if they want to touch up their make-up. She had one, and I positioned it in front of the flash angled upwards, which caused the flash to bounce off the ceiling.
Indirect Flash
You can see in this shot that the paining is smoothly lit. Because the camera is expecting the flash to more directly illuminate the shot, you will find it just a bit darker than you’d probably like, but this is easily compensated for with just about any image editor. Just adjust the brightness up a bit and you’ll come out with a decent photo, and likely less harshly lit and more pleasing to the eye. I find that flash photography tends to generate harsh images if not diffused somehow.
Another problem with indoor flash photography are shadows. Since the flash is always somewhat offset from the lens (unless you have a rare ring flash), this creates a shadow that may be visible depending on the orientation of your camera and scene composition.
Direct Flash
In the image above, the camera is turned sideways and the shadow of the vase dominates the background and is distracting. I used the mirror to deflect the flash towards the ceiling, and got this more evenly illuminated shot:
Indirect Flash
The picture is generally more pleasing without the harsh shadow, though I did have to brighten it up a bit since the lighting was more diffuse. Because it’s not so brightly lit, you don’t see the corrosion on the vase as boldly in the second shot, but then the second shot is more natural- it is more as it appears to my eye. And though you don’t see the bottom illuminated, I don’t think that’s a negative, unless you are documenting this for sale on eBay or something. Also, notice the background (the wall) is not washed out- you can see the paint texture with the indirect lighting.
Finally, here’s a shot of my camera with a handheld mirror.
On my Nikon, the flash is compact and pops up. It’s easy to deflect and diffuse if you have a low ceiling- those in a “normal” room with a 8 or 9 foot (up to 3m) ceiling. If you are in a large room with a high ceiling, you can try diffusing off a wall, if there’s one handy- just angle the mirror towards the wall instead.
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Topics: Improvement, Tips | 2 Comments »
July 2nd, 2008 at 05:09
Sir Snapalot,
Seeking a small indirect flash to be used with a cameras to be used for making photo IDs. I am thinking some type of umbrella reflector with a diameter of 12 to 14 inches. Can you assist?
July 2nd, 2008 at 07:54
Any umbrella at all will result in a more pleasing photo. Larger umbrellas will result in a more diffuse shadow, and in good portrait photography, two umbrellas with different intensity settings are use- one for the highlight, and the other on the opposite side, for fill lighting.
However, since you are using it for Photo ID’s, I would think even a small umbrella would result in a big enough difference to make most folks happy. After all, they are likely only paying $5-10 for the picture.