>Hi there everyone,
>
>I am one of I think a large pack of silent readers on this group, who don't
>contribute very often but find a lot of information exchanged on the forum
>very valuable and highly instructive. Thanks to all those who share their
>knowledge and experience (and their first-rate sense of humour) with the
>rest!
>
>And now -- to the point. Fill-in flash has been one of the most vague
>photographic terms that I've seen discussed on various occassions. I've seen
>things like 'use your flashgun for a nice fill-in' or 'a little bit of
>fill-in flash would be a good idea with this type of shot.'
>
>My question: is there a fixed definition of fill-in flash? My camera setup
>is an EOS 50e with a couple of lenses and a 550EX. I sometimes use my flash
>unit outdoors when the bright sun produces ugly shadows on my subject's
>face. The 550EX is very good at greatly reducing these shadows. Would you
>call that fill-in flash?
Yes. Fill-flash mean using the flasg to "fill" the shadows.
>Or maybe fill-in is something much more subtle, when you e.g. set an
>underexposure of -2 or more stops?
In fact, if you use your 50e (to keep this on topic ;-) with your 550Ex
under daylight you are, in fact using a -1.5 Ev flash compensation. All EOS
cameras feature an automatic flash compensation when the ambiental light
level is high. On some bodies it can be eliminated, but not in the EOS 50.
All dialed-in flash compensation adds to the automatic one.
That compensation starts at Ev 11 ISO 100 with -0.5 Ev and goes to -1.5 Ev
at Ev 15 ISO 100. That is explained in the EOS Flash FAQ:
http://bobatkins.photo.net/info/faq30/flashfaq.htm
>I've once seen a beautiful photo in UK's
>Practical Photography of a young boy dressed up as a soldier. His face was
>all covered with some army grease. The photo was taken with a touch of
>flash. So the face was still intentionally dark and dirty, but there were
>also clear sparkles in the boy's eyes that made the shot much more lively.
>Would that be fill-in?
These are catchlights but I would not call them "fill-flash" if the shadows
do not change.
>And how to add a very tiny amount of flash when using
>the EOS setup I use?
Just use Flash-Exposure compensation. It's a feature of your camera.
If you dial -1 Ev under daylight (Over EV 14 ISO 100) that will yield a
total -2.5 Ev fill flash. Not enough to fill but I suspect it will give
"catchlights".
>I hope I've somehow managed to get my point through all this confusion. I'd
>be grateful for your feedback.
>
>Maciek Drobka,
>Poland
>
>P.S. As an afterthought, could you point me to any Web resources that
>discuss fill-in flash?
All the resources I remember about that are in Spanish:
http://www.geocities.com/hurodal/cursoflash.htm
http://www.jorge-guerrero.com/apuntes/apuntesf/html/flash.htm
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