A holiday message from a photo geek: using your flash correctly is rather easy and quite worth it. Just knowing what each mode does will improve your photos as you’ll know when to change that setting; the camera will do the rest.

A lot of folks keep flash use simple and use the flash indoors on automatic and then turn it off in bright daylight. That’s functional, but you can do better. It’s not much more work at all to use the right mode for the right shot. You don’t need a light meter or anything involved like that, just a good camera and about three seconds before the photo to do the right thing.

Flash Modes

Using the right flash mode will solve a lot of ills. Not every ill, and not every photo should have a flash, but when it’s right then you want the right one.

Automatic/Fill Flash

This is the one everyone loves to use because it’s rather smart, trouble-free, and gets a lot of photos where you can easily tell what you were trying to shoot. You know, around the white blur in the middle where you forgot that an item was reflective (like, oh, shiny wrapping paper).

It’s a very simple algorithm that equates to: “Is there enough light here to use a fast enough shutter speed so the user won’t blur the photo?” If the answer is no, the flash comes on and the shutter speed is usually moved to at least 60 (that’s 1/60th of a second; 60 seconds would look like 60” when discussing shutter speeds). It’s a great Point and Shoot (P/S) method of getting a decent photo out of a scene, but you can do better. The problem is that the camera cannot, so it alternates between on and off and gives you the choice of using specialty flashes as needed.

Red Eye Reduction

When looking at the human eye under a flash the camera will see a red pupil. This is because the eye’s iris is wide open due to the low light that necessitated the flash, thus exposing the retina. However, a healthy eye will quickly respond to a flash and contract, making it appear black again. Red eye reduction gives two flashes; one to contract the eye and one for the flash.

Use this mode when you have people in the scene and don’t care about capturing a distant background.

When using this mode, tell the participants to wait for the second flash. In lower light you can still get a blur from people moving around, even with a flash.

Slow Synchro (Nighttime Mode)

This is an old camera trick that’s now been automated. If you leave the shutter open longer at night, you can get just about any picture at any film speed; the trick is simply getting enough light onto the film or sensor area. So when you put a camera into Slow Synchro mode (usually denoted with an S and a lightning bolt) you’ll get a standard flash for the photo, but the camera will slow the shutter down a bit to get more light into the photo and try to expose areas that the flash didn’t reach. This has the effect of brightening the foreground without drowning out the background.

The only caveat is that because the shutter speed is slow you’ll need to hold very still or use a surface or tripod to hold the camera for the shot.

Without SS: Notice the lack of detail in the background and the flash echo on the computer.

With SS: Notice the background detail and the lack of the characteristic white flash echo on the computer and table.

Use this mode when you have an object in the foreground but want the details of the background in the shot. It’s also useful for shots, as above, where the flash would otherwise leave a mark in the middle of the photo because of a reflective or emittive surface (notice the LCD).

Red Eye/Slow

While once uncommon, it’s showing up more often in the newer P/S cameras, so it’s good to know you can have the best of both worlds. When photographing people against a nighttime background, you can both trick people’s eyes as well as get background detail. Just remember the slow synchro rule: be still.

Use this one for the following scenes:

• People against the railing with a nighttime backdrop, like an on a boat or at a sports game.

• People against a window at night. The SS effect will mute the white flash you get from the window to a degree.

Tips for a Shaker

If you have a shaky hand, here’s some things to try:

• Breathe in before the shot.
• Try either one of tensing or relaxing your arm during the shot. Different things work differently with different people.
• Use both arms with the previous tip.
• Use a surface nearby like a bar or table and put the camera on the edge. Shoot with one finger, if possible.
• Use the two-second self-fire mode with the previous tip if your finger keeps sliding the camera when you hit it. Works great on tripods with long exposures as well. Older cameras had a hand-held flash bulb for just this purpose.

• Use a full flash and your camera’s Aperture/Shutter priority mode to get a higher shutter speed on the shot. It may not cross that critical 1/60th of a second mark but it could get you closer.