Fill in Flash

Sunny days inspire you to take pictures. However, bright sunlight can cause heavy dark shadows which don't look natural. The reason is that our brains are always correcting the images we see with our eyes so they make sense. In fact it's rare we even notice shadows at all unless we're looking for them.

Strong sunlight isn't he best light to photograph people in but sometimes you don't have a choice and this is when a bit of fill in flash can come to the rescue and soften the shadows.

Fill in flash means using the flash to literally fill in the shadows with a little light and make them closer to the sunlit areas. You can remove them entirely if you like but I prefer to keep some because it looks weird without them.

Fill in flash sounds tricky but it's actually very simple and effective. By adjusting the power of your flash so it only affects the shadow areas you can gently fill them in for a more natural look. Hence the term fill in flash.

We'll take you through fill in flash step by step and show you how it's done whether you're using the on-camera flash or a dedicated flash unit...