Fill-in flash uses a combination of flash and daylight to make an exposure. It is useful in strong daylight to fill in shadows formed by existing light. The effect is natural rather than harsh.
Documentation is not the work. You need to plan your photo shot in away that it records a sense of your artwork. This may mean you need to do a number of different things. A general installation shot to give an idea of scale and contextualising the work within the space. A cropped shot of a piece to display it clearly. A close shot to show materials and texture. A clear and straightforward recording of the work is what you should be after. Decide which material you wish to record your work in, i.e. colour slide film (transparencies), colour prints, black & white or digital. …
Fill light makes shadows less dark by adding light to them. Photographic materials can record detail and texture in either brightly lit areas or deeply shadowed ones but generally not in both at the same time.
The Inverse square Jaw is the basis for flash exposure calculations. The farther the light travels, the more the light rays spread out and the dimmer the resulting illumination. …see full text
To Calculate your own Flash Exposure
To calculate your own flash exposure you need to know two things: the distance that the light travels to the subject and the guide number (a rating given by the manufacturer for the flash when used with a specific film speed) …see full text
Bounce Flash Travels an Extra Distance
If you are calculating a bounce flash exposure, measure the distance not from flash to subject but from flash to reflecting surface to subject. …see full text
1. The Key light or Principal light is the one light which dominates all the others, creating the most noticeable highlights and casting the most important shadows.
2. The Fill-in light is used to illuminate the shadows cast by the Key light, bringing the overall contrast of the subject within the range of the sensitive material.
Light from any source – a window, a continuously burning lamp, a flash – foltows the same general rule: The light falls off (gets dimmer) the farther the light source is from an object. But light from a flash comes and goes so fast that you can’t see the effect of the flash on a scene at the time you are taking the picture. Special exposure meters are designed for use with flash; you can’t use an ordinary exposure meter to meas.
ONLY switch the Pack ‘ON’ AFTER the Flash Heads have been correctly connected. Never disconnect the Flash Head cables with out first switching the power off. High voltage goes through these cables and care should always be taken when using them.
Many fine portraits have been made using simple lighting setups. You don’t need a complicated arrangement of lights to make a good portrait. In fact, the simpler the setup, the more comfortable and relaxed your subject is likely to be.
Flash used normally will freeze moving object and if the exposure is correct, will evenly illuminate everything within its range. But, as in every aspect of photography, creating rule braking can produce stunning results; and this is particularly the unorthodox technique of slow sync flash.
The most realistic and usually most pleasing lighting resembles daylight, the light we see most often: one main source of light from above creating a single set of shadows. Lighting seems unrealistic (though there may be times when you will want that) if it comes from below or if it comes from two or more equally strong sources that produce shadows going in different directions.
Naturally the diagrams should only be taken as a guide, as it is impossible to accurately represent the enormous variety of heads, dishes, softboxes, reflectors and so on that are available, while using an accessible range of diagrams, nor is it possible to fully indicate lighting ratios and other such specifics. In practice, however, differences in equipment, and sometimes scale, should be small, and will anyhow at allow you to add your own personal stamp to the arrangement you’ re seeking to replicate. In addition you’ll find technical details about the use of camera, film, exposure, lens etc. along with any useful hints and tips.
Artificial light sources let you bring your own light with you when the sun goes down, when you photograph in a relatively dark room, or when you need just a little more light than is available naturally. Different sources produce light of different colour balances, an important factor if you are using colour films.
Flash can be used in conjunction with ambient (already existing) light. It can be very useful as a secondary light source to fill in the shadows of natural light, without losing the basic light & shade patterns nor the general atmosphere.