Lowering the Power of Your Pop-Up Flash

Some photographers use their camera’s built-in pop-up flash as a fill flash when they’re not trying to fully light the person they’re shooting with flash, and they just want a little bit of flash to help fill in the shadows. The problem is your camera doesn’t always know that you only want a little fill, and it usually sends more flash than you actually want, and the photo looks, well...it looks like you used a pop-up flash. However, most cameras actually have a setting that lets you lower the power of your pop-up flash, so if you try the ol’ fill flash route and find that it looks more like regular flash, you can dial down the power of your pop-up and try again. On Nikon cameras, you do this by holding down the flash mode button (the one on the front side of your camera, right by the lens—it has a lightning bolt on it), then looking at the control panel on top, and turning the subcommand dial in front so you see a negative number. On Canon cameras, you press the ISO/flash exposure compensation button, look at the top LCD or viewfinder, and turn the quick control dial until you see a negative number. Then take a test shot, look at the results, and see if you need to lower the power some more.