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Why I Don't Like Flash

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1/8 sec @ f4.5 ISO 320


1/50 sec @f4.5 ISO 120 flash fired, auto mode

Timothy was recently given on "long-term loan" a point and shoot camera. I was trying to familiarize myself with it the other day so that I could help him use it. I took a few pictures of Sarah (she's much less bashful than Timothy right now). Both pictures above are only cropped to 4"x6" for potential printing. I made no other adjustments. The top picture is without flash. I forgot that I was in manual exposure mode, so it is a little underexposed. It's also blurry because it was taken at a very slow shutter speed. The other picture above was taken with flash in auto exposure mode. If I had to choose between the two I would definitely choose the picture that was taken without flash. The picture with flash looks flat, and slightly alien. I'd rather have an underexposed image than a weird looking picture.

Fortunately, I don't have to take the image as is. The above pictures are with very quick adjustments. You can see that the one without flash is much better looking with minor levels adjustments. It took me less than a minute to perform these adjustments. The flash picture is better after levels adjustments, but still not as good as the picture without flash. I also had to remove the red-eye in the flash picture. One eye would not correct using the automated tool, so I had to remove the red-eye manually. Total adjustment time on this shot was around 5 minutes. The red-eye problem is completely avoided by not using flash.

I could go on and on, but I'll save that for any who are interested enough to ask for further details.

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Comments

  1. TawnieOctober 1, 2008 at 9:59 PM

    You know I don't really ever want the camera back, right? If you try to give it back to me I might disown you...

    ReplyDelete

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