Low-light Flash Balancing
Many people end up hating their flash—especially if it’s a pop-up unit or a hotshoe-mounted gun—after using it indoors. The flash can overpower the ambient light to give horrible harsh lighting with nasty, dark shadows. It gives no modeling for three-dimensionality and totally kills the atmosphere, and finally, there’s the age-old problem of red-eye.
As when using a flash outdoors on a bright day, the key in low light—either indoors or outdoors—is to balance the flash with the ambient light, both in intensity and color.
The flash can act like the main light source, with the ambient light acting as fill light to retain the atmosphere and fill in any shadows, or the ambient light can be the main light, with the flash just ...
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