No…I’m not going crazy. and no I am not the first one to make the suggestion. While the notion sounds completely ridiculous you will actually find, after playing around with the idea yourself, that there is logic and grace behind the act.

I recently took a trip with my family to the Kirstenbosch Gardens. It was a stunning day and we were all lying lazily about in the sunshine when I decided to snap some pics.

The ideal position for comfortable lazy-sun-soaking is one where your head is in the shade and your body is in the sun…but with the sun so bright the lighting for photography becomes very harsh. Now consider the fact that you want both head and body to be visible without one having overexposed blown highlights or the other just being a thick black patch on your image…the headless horseman comes to mind!

So there I was trying to take photos when the subject is half lit and half dark…a nightmare really unless you are willing to consider merging two images afterwards - one with correct exposure for the sunny patch and one with correct exposure for the shade. The only problem with this is that you might end up with an odd looking stripe through your image that follows the shade/sun line.

So outcomes the flash! Being an off-camera flash that works with both an extension cable and in slave mode.

Cable: you can purchase an extension cable that fits the top of your camera and the bottom of your flash units and comes in various lengths.

OR

Slave: you can set your off camera flash to ‘Slave Mode’ which means that it triggers only when you built-in flash goes off. This means that you can put the off-camera flash anywhere in range and not have to worry about cables. Your built-in flash can be set to a very low power so that it doesn’t interfere too much with your shot.

Using either of these methods you can now put your external flash in a position that nicely lights up your shaded area while you set your exposure for the sunny area.

It will take some moving around (of the photographer and the external flash) to achieve the ideal effect.
and presto! You are using your flash in full sunlight!

Now consider that even when your subject is in direct sunlight and you are trying to take a portrait shot - there will be harsh shadows across the face created by the nose or hair or accessories - using your flash to gently fill in those shadow areas is a great way to even out the light/dark portions of your photo

 

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