Flashing at Hendon – 12Nov11

Not a big fan of flash photography, much rather use manual settings or in the case of Hendon, a tripod and long exposures. I was a bit impressed with the on-camera flash photos I took at the Science Museum a couple of week back using the ‘Night Portrait’ mode on my Sony Alpha. Being a camera function I had no control over the settings which got me thinking. Could I get the same effect using manual settings. I was hand holding my Sony Alpha SLT A-35 with a Sony 16-80mm lens attached. I adjusted the intensity of the flash using the ‘Flash Compensation’ available in the function menu. If the subject was further back, I upped the setting to plus numbers and if closer, down to minus numbers. If that wasn’t enough I placed a bit of tissue over the flash just to diffuse it a bit more. Although I shot in Jpeg, I left the White Balance on AUTO and adjusted it in Camera Raw along with initial processing before finishing off in Elements 9. One thing I did find out was that at say 1/3sec with the flash on, the images were sharp and in focus. Flash off and they were soft and blurred. For a first attempt, could do better.

1/10sec – F7.1 – ISO200

1/8sec – F5.6 – ISO100

1/2sec – F5.6 – ISO400

1/4sec – F5.6 – ISO800

1/4sec – F5.6 – ISO800

1/4sec – F8 – ISO800

1/8sec – F5 – ISO400

1/5sec – F5.6 – ISO400

1/8sec – F5.6 – ISO400

1/4sec – F8 – ISO400

1/5sec – F6.3 – ISO200

Brian