Julia and I walked along the Root River Trail in Lanesboro on Friday, and I of course brought my camera. I took the opportunity to experiment with fill flash for lightening the subject (in this case, Julia) in front of a brightly-lit background. I also had some fun with some effects presets in Lightroom when I was doing the post-processing. Examples under the jump…
I found that the best way to use the fill flash was to put my 430EX II flash into manual mode and set it to 1/4 to 1/8 full power. I tried using Aperture-Priority mode, which is supposed to automatically use fill flash with E-TTL, but I just didn’t like it as much. Here’s an example of a picture of Julia that used some fill flash:
The flash helped lighten the shadows on her face, without becoming too overpowering. Here’s another example:
Contrast that with a picture of her that doesn’t have any fill flash, just natural light:
I also had fun with some Lightroom presets for special effects. This photo of a sign and bridge has an old-fashioned, grainy look:
This one is almost, but not quite, like a toned black-and-white print:
Both fill flash and presets can come in very handy. I’ll definitely play with them some more in the future.