Your Flash Is Not Only For Night Shots

One little trick that people don't realize is that the flash is not only for night shots, quite the opposite. Actually, when you shoot people and pets, you should almost always use, especially during the daytime in sunny days. Used this way, what photographers call fill flash, it with partly remove unsightly shadows in the face and brighten your subjects.

Now the tricky part is that in most compact cameras, you need to go in 'manual' mode (which isn't like a SLR manual mode, don't be afraid to venture) to be able to override the camera's decision-making as to when to fire the flash. Typically, Auto modes when only fire the flash when little light is around. Below is an example of using the flash when the camera wouldn't have do so by itself, using my Canon compact camera. I guess I should have shot one without to compare, but I wasn't thinking about this blog entry when I shot it.

By the way, my friend Sly and I walked up and swam down the river you see (the bridge behind is Hozukyo station in Kyoto). How did I keep my belonging dry? Well, for my camera and money, I put them a Pelican Micro Case (I have the yellow one, which would be easier to find should it actually fall out of my bag while hiking/ trail running/ snowboarding/ swim, etc.), while I ziplocked my weatherproof cell phone. Then, I put it all in a hermetic tupperware-type container that actually has rubber bands to seal it better (they also keep your food much better than regular plastic containers). After wadding in the water a bit, I realized that the container alone would have been enough as the contents were completely dry. But then again, better be safe than sorry, right?