[NikonCoolPix] Re: 880 flash leveling problem

From: avidgamefan (avidgamefan_at_antispamdomain.not)
Date: Mon Jul 21 2003 - 10:40:45 EDT


--- In NikonCoolPix_.at._yahoogroups.com, Andy Turner <andy_.at._p...> wrote:
>
> I've got an 880. I've always had this problem when taking indoor
> photos in the evening, that if the flash is on, the subject is way
too
> bright and white, but if I turn it off, then the exposure time
(often
> 1 sec) makes it far too long to be useful. It's kinda like I want
to
> turn down the flash level a little. Is there some setting I should
be
> looking at?

Is the problem that the subject is TOO white (details blown out)?
(Go to the histogram, and if you see flashing in areas that you
wanted to see, then you've blown out the details -- try again with
a darker exposure setting.)

One problem is not that the subject is lighted, but that everything
else is really dark, so that can look a bit odd. There is a "slow
flash" setting that takes a flash, but leaves the shutter on longer;
this allows you to get the rest of the scene, but it doesn't work
for me because for me, it's the same problem as before -- if you
have a long shutter, you'll jiggle enough to make a blurry pic.
(And who wants to walk around a party bumping into things & people
with a huge tripod? Hardly the way to get some candid photos!) The
alternative is that you can improve things to some extent by using a
picture editor such as Photoshop Elements or Paint Shop Pro. You
can bring out some of the detail from the shadows, but it'll not
look as good! Better than nothing...

My biggest problem with flash is that it just is brutal. I'm not
sure that I can say that part of the pic looks great, as it is kind
of a harsh light with harsh shadow lines. So you may or may not
like even what your subject looks like. One option is to improve
the flash. I got a "slave" unit which can fire when the main one
fires. This will light up more area, and hopefully fill in some
shadows. It can still be harsh, but it's an improvement. My
problem with this approach is that it just requires one more thing
to fool with and set up, and it's just not convenient.

I think my current approach is to try to avoid the flash most of the
time, and try bracing the camera and using a mini-tripod when I
can. Also, increasing the ISO helps a lot; it's hard to make that
choice to increase the noise so much, but I keep reminding myself --
better noisy than blurry.

Gary

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