Intermediate Photography Lesson 6 Quiz | Test Your Knowledge

A small flash on top of the camera lights the subject from the same direction you see them, filling the shadows that give a face its shape, so it looks flat. Because the source is small and hard, it also throws a crisp shadow onto the wall behind. Bouncing the flash or moving it off camera fixes both.

Bouncing off a white ceiling spreads the flash over a wide area, so the light reaching people comes from a source many times larger than the flash head. Larger sources make softer light with gentler shadows, and the light comes from above like normal room light. A white ceiling does not change the light's color.

In backlight the face sits in shadow. Fill flash at reduced power, often 1 to 2 stops below full exposure, adds just enough light to brighten the face while the sun still rims the hair. Full power would overpower the sunlight and look artificial.

Flash exposure compensation adjusts the output the camera or flash unit calculates for a TTL exposure, adding or removing power without changing the ambient exposure settings. It is used when the automatic result is technically correct but looks too harsh, too flat, or unbalanced relative to the ambient light.

TTL fires a pre-flash and measures the light returning from that pulse to set flash output for the main exposure. Any change in subject distance, surface reflectivity, or background brightness changes the pre-flash reading, causing the system to recalculate and produce a different output for each frame.

Manual flash fires the same power every time, so when distances and setup stay fixed, such as in a studio or product shoot, every exposure matches. TTL recalculates for each frame, so its output can shift with clothing, background or reflections. TTL is more convenient when distances keep changing.

This is dragging the shutter. A slower shutter speed gives the warm candle and lamp light time to register, while the flash at low power adds just enough light to the faces. The flash's very short burst still freezes people even though the shutter stays open longer.

A dark ceiling absorbs much of the flash, and a high ceiling makes the light travel much farther, so little comes back and the flash may run out of power. Whatever light does return takes on the ceiling's color, giving a warm brown cast. A lower, white surface or a reflector solves both problems.

Dragging the shutter means choosing a shutter speed well below the flash sync speed so ambient light has time to build up. The brief flash lights and freezes the subject, while the longer exposure records the background's own light instead of leaving it black.

TTL flash sets its output from the light that comes back to the camera. A mirror behind the subject sends the flash straight back as a bright glare, so the meter thinks the scene is bright and cuts the output, leaving the subject too dark. Shoot at an angle to the mirror so the reflection misses the lens, or switch to manual flash.