JJ Lehto ALMS LMP1 Champ

No expert here on people stuff, or candids. This is J.J. Lehto being

interviewed after the clinching victory at Road America. Good, bad,

suggestions??

Baseball caps are tough since the very purpose of them is to block the light from the subject's face. Fill flash can help sometimes.

Thanks, I never really thought about that. I have never even bought a flash for my camera, since I shoot almost 100% outdoors and in the sun.

Tim, a flash gun is invaluable for pit & paddock work - I don't know how I'd be able to live without mine... As the other poster points out, it is great for helping to lighten the shadow cast by the peak of a baseball cap - or any shadows cast in harsh lighting conditions. Then there's the plus of being able to "add" light on a dull / overcast day - if properly done, it doesn't even look like you've used a flashgun. Other than the shadow issue, the photo isn't half bad - as a candid it works well IMHO ;-)

Witty's quite correct on this and I wish she was offering lessons on the "correct technique" she refers to in her comment. I've had some success with fill flash, but mostly with shots of cars in the paddock tents and I suffer from not having invested in a good enough (i.e. expensive) flash unit to do this type of work properly.

Sorry I should have replied to this earlier, but work and thesis kind of got in the way a little. I'm not sure how useful these tips will be for non-Canon users but anyway...

 

I tend to use flash mainly when shooting manual, that way it is easier to control the level of fill. Basically, the slower the shutter speed, the more ambient light contributes to the exposure and the less flash-y the photos look. Shoot with ambient light in mind (get a baseline meter reading) and use the flash as an additional source of light just to lift the shadows - I find my 550EX is pretty predictable in terms of exposure. However, I do tend to manually set the zoom head for wider than the lens focal length I am using so that the light isn't quite so direct and concentrated, but then again it only zooms up to 105mm (off the top of my head) and I do a lot of work at 400mm... You can also vary the brightness by adjusting the FEC if you need to.

 

Have attached a portrait shot using fill flash. This was taken inside the garage, strongly backlit through the open roller door, and exposed for ambient indoor light. The lens was a 100-400L at 400mm and f5.6 (wide open), shutter speed 1/200 and ISO 400. No FEC was used, image just sharpened and resized.