Theory Notes - Hair Project

Theory Notes - Flashes

In photography a flas can be used to create an extra instantaneous light, artificial light, in only 1/1000 to 1/200 seconds. Flashes can be used for various reasons like helping to take pictures of things in motion, adding an extra lighting in the picture, and other reasons. Mainly flashes are used if the scene has bad lighting and the flash then exposes the picture with more light. "Flash" can either be referred to the flash itself or the electronic flash unit which discharges the flash of light.

Flashes can either be built in to the camera or be added to the camera. Through the years the Flash has been improved from the flash bulb, to the flash cube and now today the flash is a part of the camera.

A Flash Cube

Techniques - Flashes are often used inside as there might be missing some light sources and a
fill-flash gives the effect that the camera is surrounding the subject and that it is very close to the subject, but still adds the details in the background.
Bounce flash occurs when the flash is pointed upwards towards the ceiling or towards the flash umbrella to reflect the light on the subject.

The photographer is using a flash

Some drawbacks of using flash:

• Camera's with built-in flash will not have a low intensity of the flash and the light will not be good enough for pictures of a distant of around 3 metres.


• Often flashes give off the "red eye effect" making the subject's eyes in the picture red.

Theory Notes - Light Meters

Using the exposure correctly is important because for example the sky can be different in brigtness and so it is important to use the exposure meter correctly.

There are two types of light metering methods:

• Reflective Meters measure the light which is reflecting on the subject. You can use the center-weighted, spot or matrix metering while attempting to use the proper exposure.
  - Center-weighted takes a general metering of the image and focusing more in the center of the picture.
  - Spot metering focuses the metering on a small area of the scene.
  - Matrix metering is the newest form of metering methods. It divides the scene into 5 - 45 areas and indvidually finds the best exposure values.


• Incident Light metering measures the light over the subject. Incident light metering is easier to use than the reflective metering because you don't have to think about the subject's reflection.

The three pictures on the left show different exposures. (The circle locates the location metred on.) The middle photo is under exposured because the meter focused on the brightest area and so it was under exposured. While the bottom picture was metered on the darker areas and so the pictures was over exposured.