The Strobe: Most Valuable Tool of Photographers Today?

[GerrySiegel]

<p>I have been using small shoe shoe type flash for some time,even when it was that basic old Vivitar 285 HV. (You remember, yellow mode for outdoor fill, blue mode for indoors. On camera or on a bracket,whatever.) The advantage for me is that you can take a photo ,and use the sun's natural light as backlight/ side light/ fill as you choose and still get illumination in the faces and the catchlight in the eye. Modern flash takes so much of the guesswork away, it is just wonderful, so many options. But I would agree that natural light and natural reflectors are even better. There may come a day when flash will seem like a useless appendage, but not quite yet.</p><div></div>

[Paul Lewis1664881697]

<p>I use flash as little as possible and am not a fan of the majority of the photos I see on Strobist. I'll use flash indoors, but will usually find any way to avoid it when shooting outside. I've even used really fast film (TMAX-3200 and Ektachrome 1600) to avoid using flash.</p>

[summitar]

<p>Most valuable? <br>

Having been born color blind and now having lost effective vision in my right eye due to macular edema, now say the most valuable thing to a photographer is good eyesight.</p>

[zack_lau]

<p>Manually set fill flash works great on a digital camera for taking pictures of roses. Unlike people photography, they don't mind waiting for me to get the flash/camera set just the way I want. But, since the beauty of roses is fleeting, I often don't have the opportunity to wait for better light.</p>