Spring 2016 Saber Tails 25
Petit Basset Griffon Vendéen Club of America
Bernie Indoors in Sunlight
Puppy Susie On Couch
Taffy Snuggling On Top of Susie
W
e don’t have to depend on the sun indoors, we can
make our light. Artificial light can be from the light
fixtures that ordinarily provide light for your indoor activi-
ties, or it can be from a flash, usually a part of the camera
or mounted on the camera.
I
f I’m going to use flash indoors, I try to use a separate flash
which either sits on the accessory shoe at the top of the
camera, or in a flash bracket, and can be tilted so that the
flash is pointed at the ceiling, spreading out and softening
the light. This technique is called bounce flash. If you use
the camera’s built in flash, and the lens has a lens shade or
hood, take that off so that the lens hood does not cut off
part of the flash, casting a shadow.
G
ood looking flash photography can be a challenge.
Unless you have a reflector or diffuser accessory over
the flash or use bounce flash, flash tends to be harsh and
can cast an annoying shadow behind the subject.
A
lso, a flash that is near to the lens can be reflected from
the interior of the subject’s eye back to the camera,
resulting in what is called “red eye” with people or with
green “pet eye” with animals. This is generally regarded as
unattractive. It can be dealt with in post processing with
software, but unless you’re post processing your photos,
that doesn’t help you. Instead of dealing with pet eye post
processing it’s better to use a flash farther away from the
axis of the lens, if possible, or to use bounce flash, which
is generally more pleasing anyway. A flash mounted on a
camera’s accessory shoe may be far enough away from the
axis of the lens that pet eye can be avoided. An accessory
flash often can have the actual flash head pointed toward
the ceiling or a wall for bouncing.
P
utting a diffuser accessory over the flash, or a reflector
accessory around the flash, or bouncing the flash, will
generally make the exposure more pleasing and even,
and avoid shadows behind the subject as well as avoid-
ing pet eye, but at the expense of reducing the amount of
light that is sent to the subject and then reflected from the
subject to the camera’s sensor. Increasing the camera’s ISO
setting can help with that.
I
f your circumstances permit (my house does not lend
itself to this), you can take action photos of a dog indoors
using flash. An electronic flash has a very short duration
which helps stop motion. So if you have two dogs chasing
each other from room to room, you can stop them in their
tracks with a flash.