What is Digg?72 Comments
- SickFinga, on 10/12/2007, -3/+63If it's true, why not a single camera has a flash at the bottom?
- dgritsko, on 10/12/2007, -0/+25Look at the source code for the images. The first one (claimed to be with the flash on top) is titled "Flash-Full-Upsidedown.jpg," while the second (allegedly upside-down) pic is titled "Flash-Full-Right.jpg." Either the dude misnamed his JPEG's, or (more likely) there is no discernible difference between the two.
- anitab83, on 10/12/2007, -2/+26Some do (or at least did). A friend of mine in grade school had this goofy camera called a Rollei that she got from her dad. She claimed it took better shots because the flash was at the bottom. She did take great shots compared to the rest of us, but that was probably more because she was the only one with a 35mm camera and a darkroom at home.
Here's a link to the Rollei ... you can see a pic with the flash on the bottom about halfway down on the right:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollei_35 - ajchavar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13i'd also like him to explain the two highlights in the eye of the woman in the first photo. eyes are a good tell for lighting- and two highlights would mean two lights.
as a photographer, this would have essentially no effect. on consumer cameras the flash is so close to the lens that its orientation doesn't matter much. now, if you had a hotshoe mounted flash attached to a 35mm or digital SLR or rangefinder camera, the distance from the lens would make the flash orientation more noticeable. oddly enough, the upside down would look worse because people look unnatural and scary when lit from underneath (holding a flashlight under your face for a scary story).
the best thing to do with a consumer camera is to either take tissue and hold it or tape it over the flash to diffuse the lighting, or alternately use a piece of paper or cardstock and angle it under the flash, this both softens the light, and on cameras with stronger flashes, it will help bounce the light off of the ceiling (or wall depending on if you are shooting portrait or landscape orientation) for bounce lighting- which is generally preferred to direct flash. - mediaphile, on 10/12/2007, -3/+16@adamsucks:
No, actually, the only the that matters is the direction the light is coming from. If it's still coming from the same direction as the lens, and it's still directly next to the lens, it's still going to be flat and unflattering. Besides, rotating the camera around only changes the angle of the flash by a tiny amount, not enough to change the direction of the shadows.
And flash on the bottom working as a steadycam? You really, really do not understand how a steadycam works. And even if you meant it works as a counter-weight to shift the center of gravity away from the lens, a modern flash unit is so light it would have basically no effect whatsoever. - E55P3A, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12If you want anything more than snapshots, you should get your flash off camera, not flip the camera upside down.
- Scatropolis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11If you flip your monitor around you can negate that.
- nogami, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10As someone who teaches this stuff for a living, and has compared the sample photos in Photoshop, I have to say that with a compact still camera like the one shown at the top of the article, it makes almost no difference whatsoever (except that it makes you look foolish as a photographer).
Measure the difference in height of the flash when it's right-side-up and upside-down. Maybe 2.5" inches? Over a difference in height that small, the position of the lens vs the flash is largely irrelevant. On a portrait shot as shown, the subject will likely be 4-6 feet away from you or more. Over that difference, with the flash diffuser softening the light, you won't see much difference - your time would be better-spent composing the shot better, or finding ways of reducing the depth of field to soften the background and give your subject more separation and depth.
N. - MrStabby, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10Oh you see there wasn't a difference between the two pictures, they just left out a step...
To make that lady look better you need to turn your camera OFF... - jwigum, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8I agree, something fishy going on.
This whole situation smells of hype/hoax. - swiseman, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9mistarojaz makes a valid point about bouncing the flash off of the ceiling or wall. I'm a photographer, and it's not an uncommon practice. Wedding photgraphers do it all the time. The only way it would matter if the flash was underneath the lens is if it was about 5 inches or greater (5 inches minimum for taking close-up portraits) away from the lense. I can almost guarantee that most cameras with built-in flashes are two inches or less from the lens. Even on pro SLR's.
PLUS the pictures are all mixed up. "Normal" is shown with "upside down" and vice versa. Never once in my college education did this technique ever come up. Don't waste your time trying it. - OpCzar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I must be blind because I don't see a difference.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Maybe it's me, but I see no differences whatsoever in those pictures.
Unless the close-up is compared to the one of her farther away.
In which case, why did it show both pictures twice? - Walker2323, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Ya, but then you get upside down pictures!
Duh! - mediaphile, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5This is complete *****, as anyone who works with photography knows. The only way you're going to affect the flat look of built in flash is to not use it, instead using a flash you can control.
Bounce it, diffuse it, change the angle, change the distance, but simply turning a compact camera upside? Sorry, it's not that easy. - devindotcom, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Even better, if you want to take good pictures with a flash (difficult), get a hand-held one you can put at whatever angle, or bounce it off the wall, or something. Flashes look ugly in almost every circumstance IMHO, I try to avoid it even if it means shooting at less than 1/30th of a second at ISO 800 or more.
- swiseman, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4My bad, I should have said pro-sumer. Even then, I know plenty of professionals who use cameras like a Canon 30D that have the built in flash (not that they would ever use it). Bad choice of words. Sorry.
- ChumpChief, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Shenanigans! Nothing changes between the two photos except the lighting! I can't believe he can get a person to hold so still that not even their hair or clothes or smile or anything moves between two photos. Photoshop.
- artgon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3no difference at all...
- Thumper13, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I put a piece of gauze tape over my flash on the little digital I carry all the time. On my SLR, I use gels designed for theater lights to get different effects.
Learn how to use your camera. Cheap tricks won't make up for shoddy photography. - Avalontor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Ding! ChumpChief sure got it right. How come the pics are not different if he flipped the camera over. Why are they identical pics, even the closeups?
- mediaphile, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@anitab83:
Your own article contradicts all this.
"The film rewind knob of the engineering model was exchanged by a rewind crank, and a hot shoe was added for mounting an electronic flash at the base plate. Placing the hot shoe on top of the camera was not feasible, because of the underlying exposure meter and transmission gear. Mounting the hot shoe only at the frame cover would likely produce a damage, when using one of the heavy flash lights of that time. Therefore, for a natural lighting shade, the camera had to be turned upside down, when using a flash light, to get the light source above the lens."
In other words, the flash unit was mounted on the bottom for technical reasons, and to use it the right way, you would then turn the whole camera upside down so the flash was again on top. - mediaphile, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4@E55P3A:
A diffused light will always be a diffused light, because it's not a directional beam of light. Try using a few mirrors to catch the sunlight and blast it onto a 12' x 12' silk and tell me it's the same as hitting someone with direct sunlight. Not the same thing, which is the whole point of silks, bounce boards, and any other kind of diffusion. A 12' x12' silk with sunlight being shined through it is the same as a 2'x4' silk in front of a 2k light, as far as quality of light is concerned (besides color temperature, which is irrelevant to this discussion). They're both being diffused by the silk, which becomes the light source. No matter how much light you pump through that silk, or how far or close that silk is to the subject, it's still only going to be a soft light source. I don't know what makes you think a soft light source would get harder the farther away it gets. If anything, the opposite would be true as the light has to travel through more atmosphere to reach the subject, diffusing it even further (albeit very slightly).
In the same way, a 2 bank 2' Kino Flo next to the subject's face will be soft light, as will ten 4 bank 4' Kinos arranged in a grid 50' away from the subject.
Soft light will always be soft light. Distance has nothing to do with that. - MackPrime, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2just get a 1k candle lamp if you wanna do good work
- mediaphile, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@E55P3A:
Actually, changing the relative size or position of the flash to the subject changes exposure and direction. Putting gauze over the flash does reduce the overall exposure, but it also diffuses it by making the gauze the source of light, which DOES change the quality of light from hard to soft. - UGM2099, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3@E55P3A
Let me guess, you didn't take that photo with a point-and-shoot digital camera. - E55P3A, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3That shot uses a single hot-shoe flash (Nikon SB-24) firing into an umbrella. Also, its not relevant to the original as I said before, it is a response to this statement "Even better, if you want to take good pictures with a flash (difficult), get a hand-held one you can put at whatever angle, or bounce it off the wall, or something. Flashes look ugly in almost every circumstance IMHO", hence why I pressed the 'reply' button to respond.
Finally: "Except for, ya know, digital vs. film. Kinda different processes."
Different processes (not what I said), yes. Different physics (what I said), no. Light still is focused by the lens on a light sensitive material, no matter film or digital. - mediaphile, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Very true. Also, for cameras with pop-up flash like most of the pro-sumer Canon SLRs, cut a slot length-wise in one of those translucent 35mm film canisters, and slide it right over the flash. Not only diffuses the light, but spreads it around a bit as well.
- Lutz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Flash is great if you can modify the strenght, I usually set my flash to 1/128 or 1/64 for support lightning which gets me enough light for indoor photography without ceating the ugly "flash effect".
- GamingNews, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2If you are so close that turning the camera upside down changes the lighting from the flash, then you probably shouldn't be taking pictures anyway.
- UGM2099, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2BUUUUUZZZZZ COLA!
- Thumper13, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2You obviously don't understand the point of it.
It lessens the harsh effects of a flash on the skin. It also allows me to not have to use the "red-eye" function in most of my photography, alowing my camera to take quicker photos. Trust me, it works darn well. I actually think I used two small pieces of gauze, but it really does work.
The gels work even better if you know what they do. I have a background in stage lighting and if you know how the gels work, you can get some really cool effects. - xdefconx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2bs...
- E55P3A, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6Flash looks awesome if you know how to control it: http://esspeaphotography.blogspot.com/2006/09/day-in-life-ii.html
Sorry for the self link, but I can't stand people saying flash looks like junk in all circumstances. - Walker2323, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Oh riiiiiiight! Why didn't I think of that?
- racer108, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1To the author:
Next time put both pictures next to each other so I don't have to do an "F11". And I'm using 1152x864! - mediaphile, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@E55P3A:
True, a little distance would make it more diffused in the case of a softbox, but when I clip a diffusion gel to a film light, there's no distance between the light and the diffusion. Film lights and flash units are focused through a lens, and the main thing diffusion is doing is blocking that focused beam of light and turning it into a soft panel of light. So instead of a high intensity beam of light aimed directly at the subject, all you're getting is the glow from the new light source, the diffusion. - twalker294, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It's not the same picture. Look at the hair above her left eye -- there's a long hair hanging down in the second but not in the first. They look very similar but they aren't the same.
- brickbat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Look at the shadows in the dimples around the sides of her smile. There is a visible difference.
- mediaphile, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2The photographer in me says even ugly people are beautiful, and that's what photography has the power to find and show.
On the other hand, the male in me disagrees sometimes. - GrahamStw, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This may confuse the automatic metering and possibly colour balance in some cameras, so you might end up with weird exposures.
Automatic metering works by comparing the lighting values from your scene to an internal library of correctly metered shots. I doubt many of them were shot upside down! Likewise some metering systems will expect pictures to be brighter at the top (from skylight/sunlight).
If you are using a pro-sumer SLR with an on-board flash then get a Lumiquest SoftScreen (or similar) - it attaches to the flash and acts like a diffuser, softening the light and reducing glare. - mediaphile, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@E55P3A:
Right, the umbrella becomes your soft light source, not the hard unattractive flash, so it's irrelevant.
And you said every camera records light with the same physics. What you describe there is everything up until the recording of the light, with the recording processes being completely different in how they work. But this is just semantics. - OwdenBowden, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Decoded: You have to be a phucking moron to do this when taking any pictures.
- devindotcom, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I just think it's a matter of taste and of situation. Sometimes you have to use a flash, and sometimes a flash looks fine. I just try to avoid it because I try to record how it looks in natural light. Flashes look unnatural to me, and e55pa, I'm sorry, but I would never take that photo either. As far as flash photography goes, it's fine, but I would never shoot that way.
- mediaphile, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@E55P3A:
Fair enough, I see what you're saying, larger light sources fill in more shadow area, sure. In every instance, though, the light from the softbox never even approaches being a hard light source, because the light isn't directional. And also, your first article demonstrates exactly why gauze over the flash will make it a soft source, because the gauze is the same as the baffle and diffusion on the softbox. Distance may affect just how soft a soft source is, but it doesn't make a source soft.
And I'm not a studio portrait photographer, I'm a cinematographer, so I tend to read about slightly different subjects, and work with larger lights and subjects. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This is BS. The best results are obtained with a flash way off the axis of the lens, and using a diffuser of some sort. None of the P&S cameras have that. This is why there's such a big market for stroboframe flash brackets and lightsphere/omnibounce type products.
In fact if you have a flash under the lens, and the flash is the main source of illumination, the face will look demonic and possessed. - OwdenBowden, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1while you're at it why do you just stand on your head.
- gotamd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1That's really cool. I'm definitely going to have to give it a try.
- Scatropolis, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Don't know...it's the first thing that popped into my head.
Thank you, Brain Age. - optimus_maximus, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2I'm a professional too, and you are better off softening the light to avoid that flash look. I got this image:
http://www.gavinphotography.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/img_7314.JPG
by bouncing off the ceiling with a bounce card from 20 feet away. If you want professional lighting, get a professional flash. Oh yeah, you can try to diffuse the light by putting silk or vellum over a built-in flash to soften the light -
Show 51 - 72 of 72 discussions
Browsing Digg on your phone just got easier with our enhancements to the 
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is 