CHAPTER 6 HOW TECHNOLOGY LETS THERE BE LIGHT^93
...And Getting It Out
Some cameras minimize red eye
by first shooting a short flash without
taking a picture. This short flash causes
the subject’s irises to reflexively
contract.This short flash is followed by one
matched to the opening of the cam-
era’s shutter. Light from the second
flash is largely blocked by the nearly
closed iris so that little light enters the
eyeball and still less is reflected off
the retina back to the camera.4
3
That’s when fill flashsteps in. Fill flash does
exactly what its name suggests. The flash fills in the
dark shadows while it does not noticeably lighten
the already sunlit portions of the photo. The result
looks like this.2
How Fill Flash Works
On sunny days, subjects often wear wide-bill hats
that cast deep shadows on their faces—particularly
on their eyes, which are invariably the most telling
feature in a portrait. Have them take off the hats, and
they squint in such an ugly way, you’d prefer their
eyes were hidden. So, it’s back on with the hats, and
you wind up with a photo that looks like this.The best thing about fill flash is it often requires no
elaborate preparation beyond making sure your
flash is turned on. If your subject enjoys staring
wide-eyed into the sun, the added burst of light from
the flash goes unnoticed. I’ve known many newspa-
per photographers who often get only one shot at a
photo and can’t take chances. They only rarely take
a photo without using a flash, even if they’re in the
Sahara Desert at noon.3
Flashing All Around
Of course, not all flash attachments are mounted
directly over the lens. Nor to the side, a much more
preferable location. Photographers who are into
macro photography—shooting extreme close-ups
of extremely small subjects, such as June bugs and
cavity-ridden molars—often use special flash units,
calledring flashormacro flash, that let them
illuminate their subjects without their lenses blocking
their view. The flashes are either based on the same
xenon gas arrangement from earlier in this chapter or
consist of dozens of bight LEDs. In either case, they are
designed to encircle the lens, putting the lights within
inches of the subject. When it comes to June bugs, red
eye is not a consideration.1
The ubiquitous built-in flash on digital cameras ranging
from drugstore disposables to professional rigs from Nikon
and Canon are good for one thing in common: Shooting
pictures in bright sunlight. As oxymoronic as that may
seem, there’s method in the moron.