Using flash – Photography in Archaeology
When to use flash and when not to can often confuse people. You have seen
in the above examples the way to force settings by turning off the flash, but
what about when you should use a flash?
If you have a lot of brightness in the background (a very sunny day or backlit
scene you can often end up with the camera influenced by the brightness in
the background and the foreground features are underexposed.
To ensure the feature is also visible you must force the flash to operate (which
does sound strange if you are taking a photograph on a sunny day) To do
this (you may have to check your manual) but alter the setting so that the
lightning icon is visible on the screen. The flash will now go off regardless of
the conditions.
Now that the flash will take care of the foreground it is time to optimise the
background. During the day it should be possible for the auto mode to
achieve the correct results, but you may still want to adjust the exposure
setting (see Maintaining the Colour) and the same is true if you are
photographing in a dark room with light coming in from windows or doors.
This technique is useful to ensure that the lighting of your photograph is
consistent, and is known as Flash Fill.
