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You just spent $1000 on a fancy digital camera, so why do your pictures of your kids make it seen like they're playing in Carlsbad Caverns rather than your living room?
The answer is that cheap flash setup that came with your fancy camera. So how do you avoid the cave look, the harsh shadows, blue skin and shiny faces common to amateur flash photos?
We always recommend avoiding the flash when possible (see our [http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Shoot_Better_Low-Light_Pictures Shoot Better Low-Light Pictures] how to for more details), but sometimes there is no other option.
Don't worry though, photo pros create amazing images using the flash all the time and they aren't necessarily wizards, they just know a few tricks.
Here's our guide to taking better flash photos.
==Never point a loaded Flash at anyone.==
What's true of guns is also true of camera flashes -- never point them at your subject. The flash of light is simply too much for most scenes, particularly people. Instead rotate your flash mount to bounce off a wall or ceiling so the light is more evenly spread through your scene.
One note of caution: this works best with white walls, if the walls surrounding you are not white be aware that you'll need to adjust your white balance, either in the camera before hand, or, if you're shooting RAW images, you can fix it afterwards using RAW processing software.
==Really, never point a flash at anyone==
Okay, but what if my flash is the pop-up variety that doesn't pivot? Well, that does make it hard to bounce off the walls, but don't worry there are still some solutions. One of our favorites is a homemade diffuser.
A diffusers is just something that slows down, partially blocks and otherwise spreads the light from your flash around the scene. You can buy diffusers, if you happen to like spending money, but you can just as easily make them yourself.
One of our favorite tricks, which works great on point-and-shoot cameras with a pop-up flash, is to cut a ping pong ball in half and slip it over the popup flash -- viola, flash diffused.
==My photos still don't look that great==
So, diffused and reflected flash hasn't solved all your problems? Now it's time for the hard part.
It's important to understand that when you use a flash there are suddenly two light source for your camera to deal with -- the natural, ambient light in the scene and the flash you're adding. That means that everything about photography -- shutter speed, aperture, ISO, depth of field, etc -- is at least twice as complex with a flash.
In fact, there are numerous books devoted to the subject, but here's a good rule of thumb to get you started: your goal when using a flash is simply to bring the overall light in the scene up a level your camera can successfully record.
In order to do that you need to understand how your Flash works. There is some variation between camera makers, so one of the best places to start is your camera's instruction manual. See which settings and modes are optimized for flash and start experimenting to see what works.
As with all things in photography, experimenting and practicing are the best way to ensure that when you need to use a flash, you know how to do so successfully.
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