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There are advantages to bounce the flash light to a ceiling:
- When the small direct flash of light hits the ceiling, the light spreads out big time, so the quality of the light that falls back onto the subject is much wider and much softer. This reduce the harshness of the flash, and gives you better quality light.
- When the light bounced from the ceiling, from above, it is directional flash. It is no longer that one-dimensional. It creates nice shadows and lots of dimension for the subject's face.
- it keeps you from having harsh shadows on the wall behind your subject. Because the light is coming from above, down from the ceiling, the shadows
appear on the floor behind your subject, not on the wall behind them. Thus, due to the light is softer, the shadows are also softer.
There are situations you should avoid using the bouncing techniques though:
- There's not always a ceiling you can bounce off especially when you're outdoors.
- The ceiling is too high to bounce off of. The rule of thumb is if the ceiling is higher than 10 feet, it is
too far for the light to travel up and back, and your subject doesn't get properly lit.
- Be careful on the ceiling's color, because the light light picks up the color of what it hits. For example, so if the ceiling is bluish, your light becomes bluish, and your subject will now appear bluish.
Techniques of using cameras flashes
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