Picture This

Picture This!
Fill Flash

Shutterbug Staff  |  Mar 1, 2004

Picture This!

Fill Flash

Fill flash has many uses, including enhancing color on overcast days, bringing detail to shadows, and taking care of those bothersome backlight situations. Readers sent in a host of images covering all the possibilities and each image could make for a great illustration of the technique. Some readers worked on manual while others let the amazing fill flash automation of today's cameras do the work for them. Once you look over these great images we hope that you'll see the value of fill for your work as well.


Sunflower Kiss: Frank Cruz set his lens to a narrow aperture knowing he'd get what he describes as the "sunburst effect" on this shot. He worked with a Nikon D100 and 28-105mm Nikkor Zoom lens and set his aperture at f/11 at ISO 200. He turned the flash on to manual mode in aperture priority exposure mode.
© 2003, Frank Cruz, All Rights Reserved


Fall Fun: To get this great shot on an overcast day John Dylan Loring used his Minolta 9Xi and Minolta 5400Xi flash. He worked in TTL mode on Kodak Max 400 print film with an 85mm lens.
© 2003, John Dylan Loring, All Rights Reserved


Beaver At Work: Don George caught this beaver hard at work near the Snake River in Wyoming. He got down in the beaver run with his Minolta 5400HS flash attached to his Minolta Maxxum 9 and
80-200mm lens. "I crawled in close enough to get two exposures before he sounded the alarm and took off," wrote George. "It was late September and the water was cold!" He exposed on Fuji Provia 100.
© 2003, Don George, All Rights Reserved


(Right) Rose Of Sharon: Beautiful sky and beautiful flowers make a great combination, caught by Frank Vetere using his Canon 10D and 420EX flash. He set the camera in aperture priority mode at f/4 at 1/60 sec using a Canon 28-135mm IS lens.
© 2003, Frank Vetere, All Rights Reserved



Taking Flight: Tina Wright made this image at sunrise in Ponce Inlet, Florida. She used a gold gel on her flash for a touch of warmth and photographed with a Nikon F4s and Nikkor 50mm lens. She used a venerable Vivitar 285 flash and exposed on Fujichrome Sensia 100 film.
© 2003, Tina Wright, All Rights Reserved


Macro Fill: The dazzling colors of this orchid were caught by Dr. Jerome Siegel with his Nikon F4 and a 500mm lens with a 2x extender. He pushed Kodak E200 film one stop and set his lens at f/22.
© 2003, Dr. Jerome Siegel, All Rights Reserved


Ready To Roll: James Bruce caught these bike racers getting final instructions before the start of the Lapeer Days Festival Criterium bike race. You can tell it's fill because of the shadows that fall in front of his subjects. He set his Kodak DX6340 camera to f/4 and set his flash on "fill."
© 2003, James Bruce, All Rights Reserved



Cat's Eye: Every whisker and hair on this cat was recorded by Robert P. Jones using his Minolta D7 and a 200mm lens with the camera set at ISO 100 with fill flash, of course.
© 2003, Robert P. Jones, All Rights Reserved


Gentle Times: James Moore made this lovely photo of his daughter Leslie with her new colt named Levi. He used a Sony DSC-F717 camera set at f/4.5 at 1/125 sec with fill flash set at the "low" level.
© 2003, James Moore, All Rights Reserved


"Henry": This denizen of the Long Beach pier in North Carolina was photographed by Sonny Poole with his Nikon D1X with an 80-200mm AFS lens shortly after sunrise. He shot in AV mode center-weighted, with an exposure compensation of -0.7 EV. He set his Nikon SB-80dx flash to D-TTL.
© 2003, Sonny Poole, All Rights Reserved


Classic Sunset Fill: Scott Boren made this wonderful shot of his children just after sundown with his Olympus C-5050 set at ISO 100 at 1/125 sec with the flash set on "fill."
© 2003, Scott Boren, All Rights Reserved

The seeming chaos of this image, made in an automobile park in Berlin, is given form by the leading lines created by the angle at which the automobile is parked and the way the bases of the umbrellas are positioned. The lines created lead the eye into the image, a visual "trick" that is found by trying out different points of view.
© 2003, George Schaub, All Rights Reserved

Picture This! - Our Next Assignment

Vanishing Points
A photograph is a two-dimensional space, but there are many "tricks" for the eye that create a three-dimensional feel. Leading lines, S curves, vanishing points...all create a sense of perspective in an image. A vanishing point is the place where lines converge, where the eye is led from many areas within the picture space to bring the viewer into and through the image. Think of train tracks leading to infinity or a plaza laid out in squares that seem to diminish in size as you get farther from the photographer's point of view. Think of an "S" curve as that lonely road that runs into the sunset, and that leading line as the foreground that inevitably gets you into the background and you've got the idea. So send in those perspective-creating effects and show us your 2D, 3D images.

Please Read This
It is important that you read and follow these guidelines. We need to follow this procedure because of the large volume of images we receive.
1) Images sent to us cannot be returned. You retain complete copyright over the images, but do grant us permission to print your image(s) in the magazine and on our web site, www.shutterbug.net
2) Because images are not returned please send a quality print or duplicate transparency. We will not accept or view images on CD, ZIP, or any other electronic media.
3) Images will be selected on the basis of content and technical quality. Please mark your outer envelope with the topic of the month (for example, "Wide View").
4) Enclose a short caption with the image stating camera, lens, film and exposure, plus location. If you are submitting an image with a recognizable person we must have a model release or signed permission from that person to reproduce their image in the magazine and on the web site.

Send your image and information to:
Picture This! Shutterbug Magazine,
1419 Chaffee Dr., Suite #1, Titusville, FL 32780.
Deadline for submission: April 15, 2004
Images will appear in our July 2004 issue.
Our next topic: Visual Perspective
Deadline: May 15, 2004
Publication Date: August, 2004

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