Fill flash on camera phone

[2manydjs]

Crop of live photo without flash




Crop of actual photo where flash triggered



Hello,

I often take photos of casual family moments with my camera phone (like almost anyone...). Today I was in a playground with my children and their cousins. It was a bright sunny day and the playground was in a shaded area. The phone did a reasonable job on the exposure, but I thought I'd get better result if I would use the camera flash for some fill light. Surprisingly the photos with flash show the subjects in shade darker! I have live photo enabled and you can see in the video part a reasonable exposure being interrupted by a darker frame when the flash goes off and the actual photo is taken.

I must lack some understand of how this LED flash works, because I am fully surprised. With a normal flash I understand that limitations of flash sync could blow out an exposure with fill flash, but here the camera under exposed. Also with LED lighting I would expect flash sync not to be an issue, since it can be turned on continuously.

An explanation would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Chen G]

2manydjs wrote
Hello,

I often take photos of casual family moments with my camera phone (like almost anyone...). Today I was in a playground with my children and their cousins. It was a bright sunny day and the playground was in a shaded area. The phone did a reasonable job on the exposure, but I thought I'd get better result if I would use the camera flash for some fill light. Surprisingly the photos with flash show the subjects in shade darker! I have live photo enabled and you can see in the video part a reasonable exposure being interrupted by a darker frame when the flash goes off and the actual photo is taken.

I must lack some understand of how this LED flash works, because I am fully surprised. With a normal flash I understand that limitations of flash sync could blow out an exposure with fill flash, but here the camera under exposed. Also with LED lighting I would expect flash sync not to be an issue, since it can be turned on continuously.

An explanation would be greatly appreciated!

This is what happens when you read photography tips and simply apply them rigidly like a robot.

Because the phone knows about the flash and it's expecting the image to be brighter than what it meters so it under exposes the image.

Also phone LED flashes are far too weak for any kind of fill in daylight.

--
https://www.flickr.com/photos/144027285@N03/

 

[SoCalWill]

Camera phones do a fine job of multi-metering a scene, it's assumed you won't know to use a fill flash. You're better off taking a moment to post-process the default image:







--
Digital Camera and Adobe Photoshop user since 1999.
Adobe Lightroom is my adult coloring book.

 

[whvick]

2manydjs wrote
Hello,

I often take photos of casual family moments with my camera phone (like almost anyone...). Today I was in a playground with my children and their cousins. It was a bright sunny day and the playground was in a shaded area. The phone did a reasonable job on the exposure, but I thought I'd get better result if I would use the camera flash for some fill light. Surprisingly the photos with flash show the subjects in shade darker! I have live photo enabled and you can see in the video part a reasonable exposure being interrupted by a darker frame when the flash goes off and the actual photo is taken.

I must lack some understand of how this LED flash works, because I am fully surprised. With a normal flash I understand that limitations of flash sync could blow out an exposure with fill flash, but here the camera under exposed. Also with LED lighting I would expect flash sync not to be an issue, since it can be turned on continuously.

An explanation would be greatly appreciated!

This is what happens when you read photography tips and simply apply them rigidly like a robot.

Because the phone knows about the flash and it's expecting the image to be brighter than what it meters so it under exposes the image.

Also phone LED flashes are far too weak for any kind of fill in daylight.

 

[RedFox88]

Camera phones do a fine job of multi-metering a scene, it's assumed you won't know to use a fill flash. You're better off taking a moment to post-process the default image:

disagree. In your version my eyes don't know WHAT to look st because there's no contrast ! Which is what many HDR pics result in

--
Digital Camera and Adobe Photoshop user since 1999.
Adobe Lightroom is my adult coloring book.

 

[SoCalWill]

Just demonstrating what could be done expediently with global edits on a phone; without a specific subject to edit for, you can't really do a full masked edit anyway.

 

[2manydjs]

This is what happens when you read photography tips and simply apply them rigidly like a robot.

Because the phone knows about the flash and it's expecting the image to be brighter than what it meters so it under exposes the image.

Also phone LED flashes are far too weak for any kind of fill in daylight.

Start photobot log

Processing message for photography tips: found 1

Processing message for condescending language : found 1

End photobot log

Kidding aside, I do think you are right that the camera doesn't expect the flash to be used as a fill flash. However the logic still seems wrong to me; the camera should meter the bright scene and understand that flash strength would either have no effect (since it's lacking strength) or would have some minimal impact on near objects. Either case, the original metering was correct. This is how my cameras have functioned with TTL flashes as well.

I don't agree that the flash is too weak for fill in daylight though: the children were playing in the shade around 1 meter away from me. The flash has a minimal effect but does help a bit with shadow recovery. I know because on my iPhone 5s I have used this before, and I have often use a second iPhone to to get some "off camera" fill flash by using the contentious light. Obviously not a dramatic effect, just a little help.

 

[2manydjs]

Camera phones do a fine job of multi-metering a scene, it's assumed you won't know to use a fill flash. You're better off taking a moment to post-process the default image:

Thanks for your reply. After I noticed the underexposed image I turned off the flash. The images without flash had quite a bit of range in the shadows and I managed to adjust the exposure with the built in photos app quite nicely.

I now realize my phone is not going to work well with the flash fill and I will not likely switch the flash on in reasonable lit settings.

 

[whvick]

since it brings out things in shadows would it help much?

anyone have some examples?

thanks

whvick

 

[bigley Ling]

Camera phones do a fine job of multi-metering a scene, it's assumed you won't know to use a fill flash. You're better off taking a moment to post-process the default image:

Thanks for your reply. After I noticed the underexposed image I turned off the flash. The images without flash had quite a bit of range in the shadows and I managed to adjust the exposure with the built in photos app quite nicely.

I now realize my phone is not going to work well with the flash fill and I will not likely switch the flash on in reasonable lit settings.

Very wise indeed. The LED flashes in mobile phones are way too weak to compete against a backlit scene. LED flashes work optimally for illuminating a dark equal lit scene.

The only phones I know that can work for fill flash photography are ones that have a xenon flash. Phones like the Nokia 808, Lumia 1020, Samsung Galaxy K zoom, and the Hasselblad moto mod all have xenon flashes which are able to fire a much higher intensity light onto the subject.

 

[SoCalWill]

since it brings out things in shadows would it help much?

The HDR setting on the iPhone turns down highlights but does not affect shadows; great for sunsets, but if you have Lightroom CC on your phone, you can do plenty better..

 

[whvick]

since it brings out things in shadows would it help much?

The HDR setting on the iPhone turns down highlights but does not affect shadows; great for sunsets, but if you have Lightroom CC on your phone, you can do plenty better..

 

[Kung Fu]

Since few if any smartphones can trigger a remote flash, you need external continuous lighting. A small 200 LED handheld unit could have raised these subjects a stop or two.

I agree with the other posters, your phone's flash isn't powerful enough for daylight fill.