A couple with bounce flash, SMC Tak 55/1.8 Helios 44M-6

[ludoo]

One thing that is making me use my DSLR much more than my analog cameras lately, together with the ease of not having to develop film, is flash photography. I have been reading a bit on using bounce flash, and often find myself admiring the work of the great wedding photographers, I guess I'm a portrait person at heart.

Anyway, I've been experimenting with bounce flash, and I found it opens up your mind: you really start worrying about the light, where does it come from how it impacts your subjects, how to enrich ambient light with the minimum of flash light, etc. It's fascinating.

Here a few examples I shot these past few days, nothing much I'm just learning. Camera is a Pentax *istD, flash a Pentax AF280T using TTL (pretty awful with bounce, needs +2 EC) or manual mode with an orange filter for artificial light and a black cardboard half-snoot.

The first two with the Helios 44M-6, which I love but found out that has very reduced contrast with front lights, apparent even in the viewfinder.

My mother (resized, some curves, tiny bit of USM)


My aunt (same pp)


These with my very dirty SMC Tak 55/1.8, I removed some fungus but left quite a bit of dust inside.

My daughter in one of her favourite occupations (shot in jpg, resized tiny bit of USM)


And an unrelated 1:1 crop from the same SMC Tak, different picture, I find it pretty good

[Orio]

Good work, ludoo.

One problem I have with bounced flash is, that it makes the pictures look "nice" as in no bad shadows, BUT, if you don't have another directional light in the scene, which is to say if you only have the bounce flash and the ambient light, the photo looks flat and strenght-less.

You can see the difference, and what I mean, in the photo of your daughter. There, you also have a directional light, from the window, and while the bounced flash provides the even illumination, the window light puts an accent on the hair that makes the picture more alive.

So my concept is: bounced flash is ok, but you need to have also a directional light placed somewhere in your scene.

[ludoo]