How to use E-P5 Flash?

[sgreszcz]

OK, it sounds like an obvious question (I know how to turn the flash on), but now that I have a camera with built-in flash, I'm wondering how to best use it? Before now I had the E-M5 and E-PM2 and didn't bother ever attaching the external flash. I've always just used the available light when shooting my pictures.

Can anyone give me some tips on how they use the E-P5 (or any of the camera) flashes to improve their photography? I'm curious about indoor group/portrait shots, or fill flash in backlight conditions, etc.

Any firsthand experience or pointers to any tutorials would be appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[Replytoken]

A bit of fill flash is sometimes nice to balance out the light in a scene (especially if faces are in shadow). It's probably best just to adjust the flash output or exposure compensation (or exposure if you are shooting Manual) to see what works best for you. Good fill flash is subtle, so you will probably want to dial down the flash until you like your results. If you are feeling creative, you may also want to try and see if you can diffuse the flash. Somebody used a ping pong ball that they removed a portion of one side so it could slipover the flash. It looked goofy, but the concept was reasonable.

Good luck,

--Ken

 

[Engawa]

When you use flash, you are using an additional source of light. So instead of one source of light, you now have two.

Your two sources of light are flash and ambient (background) light.

You can control flash power with flash compensation and ambient light with shutter speed (or exposure compensation in Aperture priority mode).

Aperture settings and ISO settings will affect both sources of light.

The goal would be to balance both sources of light to your pleasing. It is basically just trial and error. If your flash is too bright, lower flash compensation. If the background is too bright, lower its brightness by raising the shutter speed.