What a good flash can do for a photo

O.k. Don't fall over dead k? Yes, I'm still alive, and yes, I'm actually posting! I know, shocking right? These past several months have been crazy! Emily is now 5 months old. We're only a month away from being able to finalize her adoption! I can't wait!!! For those that have asked about Em's birthmom, she is doing fabulous! She actually spent Christmas morning with us so that was great to have her here. :D For more on our lives, and our adoption, you can check out our adoption/family blog here. For now, I wanted to share a few things with you. I'll be doing separate posts for each.

The first is all about my new camera flash that I got for Christmas! In September I took a fabulous and fun photography workshop hosted by a couple of fantastic Pro Photographers I know. During this workshop they covered just about everything you'd ever want to know about photography. Including flashes. They mentioned a type of off camera flash where you can bounce the light off of various things because it has a rotation and tilt to the flash. This happened to be one of the things I mentioned to my husband I would like for Christmas.


I have a fairly decent camera, a Canon Rebel xsi. It's a 12.2 mp. For my needs I don't need any more. I would like to get a couple of newer and nicer lenses, but for now, like I said, what I have works. But I didn't have a good flash. All I had was the on camera flash and a really cheapo flash that would blind everyone who I took pics of so I never used it. So my hubby decided he would get me a new flash for Christmas. What I wanted was a flash that had a 360 degree rotation with a 90 degree tilt. He probably got a nicer one then what I needed, but I'm really happy with it so I'm not complaining. He got this one, a Speedlite 580EX II.



Here is an example of what a good flash can do for your photos. Now, I'm not a pro by any means, just a hobbyist, so keep that in mind, these are just snap shots that I did.


For this first pic, I didn't use a flash at all. This is just the seriously bad lighting in my kitchen, not to mention that my incredibly adorable Em was moving when I took it:

This next one is an example of the on camera flash, do you see how Em looks kind of blue:

Now here is a picture using the speedlite, much better:

Now, one the things I mentioned is that with the flash having a rotation and tilt you can bounce your flash off various things. So here is an example of my flash bouncing off my living room walls (which are a goldy beige color) and an example of the flash bouncing off my white ceiling. Bouncing your flash means that you can point the flash towards something, in this case the wall and the ceiling, and it will give the photo the glow of whatever it is you're bouncing the flash off of. Did that make sense? Here, let me show you.

For this first example I took a pic of a card box I made for my mom for Christmas. In this photo I pointed my flash toward my wall. Remember, it has a golden tone to it. So it gave the box a golden glow:

Now, I took a photo of the same box, same angle, but this time I bounced the flash off the white ceiling. Here are the results:

See the difference? Cool huh? Yup, I'm pretty pleased with my new flash. :D Stay tuned for more projects. I have this card box, and another one to tell you about. And I have a few other projects to include some quilts and our Christmas cards to show you. :o)