On my Canon digital Rebel I rarely use the built in. The EX 420 is great inside and out for fill, bounce, or direct flash. The the camera mount bracket needs to be stronger.
Briefly comment on the best flash techniques and gear for your work.
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It appears that the check boxes don't match the subject line above. However, most of my work involves interior photography for Realtors and interior designers and I've not found a built-in flash that is adequate, so I always use my FL-50 strobe and soft box when studio strobes are not practical.
The built-in flash is usually not powerful enough to do the job properly and the quality of light it provides indoors is poor. I always carry an old Sunpak 383 which works very well, especially indoors because it has sufficient power and the head swivels in all directions for any sort of bounce flash imaginable. If I know I will need serious flash horsepower, I use an old handlemount Sunpak 622.
It started with the Canon T-90 and the 300tl. I consistantly received inconsistant exposures. When I switched back to my Vivitar 285 and set the f/stop and shutter speed my percentage of good exposures jumped dramatically. The same results occured with the Rebel Digitals and a Canon flash made for them. What is up. Main Complainr is that exposure in full auto is irratic at best.
I have found that the built in flash will only work for certain things. One thing is for sure, I dont use it for portraits unless I have strong lighting from another angle. It really removes the depth of the image and makes the subject look strange.
I've had enough experience that I can shoot low light without flash, even plays, I find that I can capture the dramatic stage lighting with high speed film and metering the stage lighting, as long as there is a light source, flash washes out all of the dramatic lighting in a play, but I always carry flash for the shots that even my sigma 28-70 f2.8 APO cannot capture.
The problem with built-in flash on point and shoot cameras is that they flood the subject with light, easily causing overexposure. There needs to be an option for fill-lighting with the flash (allowing the light to bounce off cieling, walls, etc. instead of directly on subkect). I've found that Nikon Coolpix cameras do compensate well for the built-in flash and avoid overexposure well.
How many group pictures with the forefront overexposed while the background people are underexposed do you need? How many times do you look at a flash picture and realize that wasn't what you saw because the flash ruined the ambient light color? How many times have you depended on the built-in flash for subjects further than reasonable?
I think the built in flash on SLR's is one of the most worthless accessories imaginable. If I could have purchased my elan's without the pop up flash I would have in a heartbeat. Depending on the requirements, I use the proper flash that best fits the need at the time... For P&S's they're acceptable.
With my Nikon D70, I find that the SB-600 works best for most of my shots. Full flash or fill flash, my built in just is not versatile enough. If I need off camera multi flashes, I use the on camera flash in commander mode (unless the shot is in need of the SB-800 versatilaty).
Built-in camera flashes allow quick and spontaneous candid shots that you'd probably miss if you had to fiddle with a larger shoe-mounted flash. So you get the snap shot to record the moment which is better than no shot at all! However, if there's enough time to set up a shot, say of people or groups or interiors, I prefer to use a basic two-flash technique when travelling light. With one flash on the camera as trigger, I position the second one off at an angle to the subject (to simulate natural sunlight) using a slave to fire it. Or I'll set it further back in a room to light up the background to avoid the black-cavern effect. This setup also gives interesting backlighting to people when the slave flash is behind and higher up, angled forward. I carry lightweight clamps to mount a battery flash nearly anywhere. The whole point of all this extra work is to illuminate your photos to give them a natural daylight look, not the harsh frontal light of direct flash. Off-camera flash is more cumbersome to use, but the modelling quality is far superior to flat one-dimensional flash!
I take a lot of indoor speaker and convention-type photos, so the internal flash won't cut it. Just bought the recommended Canon flash for my 20D, which cost almost as much as the camera! (slight exaggeration, but $400 is a lot for a flash).