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Do you still use a flash?


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Maybe to turn this

gwr-6430-pannier-tank-locomotive-1932-no

 

into this

gwr-6430-pannier-tank-locomotive-1932-no

 

PP wouldn't have put the catchlight on the boiler. It's surprising how far those little pop-ups will reach.

Otherwise not much.

 

 

Mark, I just borrowed your top photo, took it into NX2, opened the shadows, balanced the contrast, and deepened the saturation. It's very easy to get these effects in PP. Doing it in LR is just as easy. I planned to drop my edited version in here, but that wasn't so easy. I don't have a Website, so I thought I would put it in my blog temporally. For one tech reason or another, I wasn't able to do that.

 

There are lot's of ways to skin a cat. If any of you want to use flash on a regular basis, do that. I have no need to, and when I switched to the smaller, lighter cameras, I decided not to carry a lot of extra support gear with me.

 

That little popup thingie on my RX100/3? I would feel a bit embarrassed to use it with people . . . and it would surely effect my magical ability to make myself invisible. 

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Not much, but I've used it a bit recently for inside/outside photos where the difference between light and dark is simply too great

 

london-england-uk-big-ben-and-the-houses

 

I used to do the same when shooting film. Now I tend to just open up the shadow areas in post-processing.

 

You got some pleasing results there. Perhaps I should get back to using flash more often in situations like this...

 

Photoshopping has its limits - even if there is a bit of detail there in the shadows, making it look natural and matching the feel / quality of the rest of the photo can be difficult / impossible.

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Yep, still use flash a great deal for my non-stock work. Metz 45-CT 4 and dedicated SCA adaptor for my Rolleiflex MF SLR. I shot a wedding on the beach a few days back. Middle of the day, harsh direct overhead sun. I'd have died without flash (fill in).

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Not much, but I've used it a bit recently for inside/outside photos where the difference between light and dark is simply too great

 

london-england-uk-big-ben-and-the-houses

 

I used to do the same when shooting film. Now I tend to just open up the shadow areas in post-processing.

 

You got some pleasing results there. Perhaps I should get back to using flash more often in situations like this...

 

 

Photoshopping has its limits - even if there is a bit of detail there in the shadows, making it look natural and matching the feel / quality of the rest of the photo can be difficult / impossible.

 

 

Exposing hidden noise is the main difficulty that I've run into when opening up deep shadows in images where there is a very high dynamic range.

 

Really nice composition BTW.

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Not much, but I've used it a bit recently for inside/outside photos where the difference between light and dark is simply too great

 

london-england-uk-big-ben-and-the-houses

 

I used to do the same when shooting film. Now I tend to just open up the shadow areas in post-processing.

 

You got some pleasing results there. Perhaps I should get back to using flash more often in situations like this...

 

 

Photoshopping has its limits - even if there is a bit of detail there in the shadows, making it look natural and matching the feel / quality of the rest of the photo can be difficult / impossible.

 

 

Exposing hidden noise is the main difficulty that I've run into when opening up deep shadows in images where there is a very high dynamic range.

 

Really nice composition BTW.

 

'Correct' exposure is a lot less important than in the days of film, but there are still limits to what you can do digitally if things are simply too dark or light.

Thanks for the comment John. I had walked under there dozens of times but it wasn't until I saw the BBC trailer for 'SS - GB' recently that I realised I should stop and get a photo.

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Not much, but I've used it a bit recently for inside/outside photos where the difference between light and dark is simply too great

 

london-england-uk-big-ben-and-the-houses

 

I used to do the same when shooting film. Now I tend to just open up the shadow areas in post-processing.

 

You got some pleasing results there. Perhaps I should get back to using flash more often in situations like this...

 

 

Photoshopping has its limits - even if there is a bit of detail there in the shadows, making it look natural and matching the feel / quality of the rest of the photo can be difficult / impossible.

 

 

Exposing hidden noise is the main difficulty that I've run into when opening up deep shadows in images where there is a very high dynamic range.

 

Really nice composition BTW.

 

'Correct' exposure is a lot less important than in the days of film, but there are still limits to what you can do digitally if things are simply too dark or light.

Thanks for the comment John. I had walked under there dozens of times but it wasn't until I saw the BBC trailer for 'SS - GB' recently that I realised I should stop and get a photo.

 

 

Sometimes old ways are the best. B)

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Underwater photography = yes x 2 flashes all the time. A Canon 580EX in a Subal housing giving ETTL + an Inon 240 on manual.

 

Same here, except I use twin Inon s2000, great little strobes for travelling with.  Pretty much the only time i use flash is underwater

 

Ed, I have 2 x Inons, but prefer the ETTL provided by the 580ex, it also gives me F32 for tiny macro. Unfortunately, my underwater gear is not small or light to travel with. Thankfully my husband is a happy Sherpa!

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I'm pleasantly surprised what that little flash on my Pentax K-5 can manage as a fill. But I still hate the clumsy look of on-camera flash. A little fill or a bit of reflection is a lot safer than hoping to save the shot with post processing.

 

I still have a box of M3 bulbs (YES, BULBS!) which I used to use in the days of film when a bulb had the power to balance an interior with hard Mediterranean light doing hotel room shots. It would have taken a really heavy duty battery flash to get anywhere near the light level. A Metz 45 wouldn't come anywhere near it. A pocketful of bulbs weighed nothing compared to a powerful over-the-shoulder battery powered strobe. Scorched a few fingers though!

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In my MoD days we used lightbulb- sized blue no. 1s 48 at a time for high-speed ciné. They cost a pound or two then but I now see them listed at $20 a pop, which I imagine they did, but we never heard them as they were the other side of a 3' thick concrete wall.

The sound of the 120mm. tank gun firing probably drowned it out a bit as well.

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Maybe to turn this

gwr-6430-pannier-tank-locomotive-1932-no

 

into this

gwr-6430-pannier-tank-locomotive-1932-no

 

PP wouldn't have put the catchlight on the boiler. It's surprising how far those little pop-ups will reach.

Otherwise not much.

 

 

Mark, I just borrowed your top photo, took it into NX2, opened the shadows, balanced the contrast, and deepened the saturation. It's very easy to get these effects in PP. Doing it in LR is just as easy. I planned to drop my edited version in here, but that wasn't so easy. I don't have a Website, so I thought I would put it in my blog temporally. For one tech reason or another, I wasn't able to do that.

 

There are lot's of ways to skin a cat. If any of you want to use flash on a regular basis, do that. I have no need to, and when I switched to the smaller, lighter cameras, I decided not to carry a lot of extra support gear with me.

 

That little popup thingie on my RX100/3? I would feel a bit embarrassed to use it with people . . . and it would surely effect my magical ability to make myself invisible. 

 

 

I no longer want to lug around a lot of cumbersome stuff either. Yes, it's amazing what those little popup flashes can do in a pinch.

 

I used a popup to lighten up the flowers here:

 

BPAMD6.jpg

 

 

Popups can come in handy in dark museums as well:

 

F7GFJ8.jpg

 

 

I used the popup here too, the chef was in deep shadow:

 

CWCTGA.jpg

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Yes.  For fill and for macro.  Sometimes with a flash on the hotshoe (fill) or on a bracket with a softbox for macro.  I'll also use a flash on a cord or wireless to fill in a dark shadow area in the foreground of a landscape (gardenscape) shot.  But for those I'm leaning more to HDR merging in Lightroom - now I've got a faster computer that can handle the processing.

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