Shadow from kit lens & hood on wide shots w/ flash

J

Jonathan12uiz

Well-known member
Anyone but me getting a shadow of the kit lens and / or lens hood in there low light pics with the flash ON? I seem to get it at the widest zoom (14mm)
 
Yes, I also see a shadow from the internal flash against the kit lens at 14mm. Per the GH1 manual (p67-8), the internal flash can only cover to 15mm in 16:9, to 18mm in 3:2, and to 22mm in 4:3 without vignetting, so Panasonic probably figured what's some shadow on top of the vignetting?
 
Panny manual says don't have your lens hood on when using flash.. it's only for no flash shots in the sun.
 
Blackout said:
Is it just me or do flash shots just come out ugly and lifeless with this camera?
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Just a word of advice.

Throughout your presence here at the dvxuser forums, you seemed to do an awful lot of research - hyper analyzing the GH1 vs the 7D. You were pixel peeping even before you had either camera. It is important to make a wise purchase, but you made countless threads on this matter, which this forum has now discussed to death. There are in-depth pro's and cons and comparisons between cameras that you will find using the search function.

Now is the time to stop analyzing your perceived shortcomings or buyers remorse. Its time to start learning the basics and to start actually practicing your photography and film-work. Ask "how to" and you'll find this forum a wealth of knowledge. Learn to paint and maybe clean your brushes, before complaining about using acrylics.
 
Blackout said:
Is it just me or do flash shots just come out ugly and lifeless with this camera?
Click to expand...

I'd say flash shots come out ugly and lifeless with every camera. (On camera flash, that is. It's just the wrong angle for light to be coming from.)

That said, the exposure seems to be all right. I have noticed washed out colors with other flashes, and I didn't see that on the one or two flash shots I have taken so far with this one.
 
iain.bason said:
I'd say flash shots come out ugly and lifeless with every camera. (On camera flash, that is. It's just the wrong angle for light to be coming from.)

That said, the exposure seems to be all right. I have noticed washed out colors with other flashes, and I didn't see that on the one or two flash shots I have taken so far with this one.
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Built-in camera flash sucks on all cameras, IMHO. If taking pictures of anything serious, get a serious flash. That's what the shoe on top is there for...not just for mounting microphones. ;)

I don't even use the built-in flash of my point-and-shoot pocket camera...learn to work with the light given...or add your own.

Built-in flashes are for teenage girls taking pictures for their MySpace page. :Drogar-BigGrin(DBG)
 
Blackout said:
Is it just me or do flash shots just come out ugly and lifeless with this camera?
Click to expand...

As some of the others have said, built-in flashes are pretty limited on most dslrs, they really are just there for when you absolutely need them and they don't usually don't offer much (if any) in the way of manual control, where they could be potentially used for minor fill flash and/or used on a low-output setting in order to get better results.

Flash photography is a tricky expensive business and takes a lot of practice. I remember buying a top of the line EZ540 Speedlight for my Eos-1 back in the day, and at almost $500 I thought it was expensive...heck, that's 1/3 the price of the whole GH1 with kit lens...Had a Q-Flash too...another expensive flash, but worth it. There's a reason folks doing flash photography have extensive and expensive setups, not to mention lots of practice and expertise. You might consider picking up an old fully manual flash (like a Sunpak or something to this effect) - you can find old full manual ones (powerful ones too) very cheaply on eBay and the GH1 should be able to fire them - many of them have rotating heads and allow you to aim them at different angles...they just aren't "digitally optimized" and don't have intelligent circuitry to mate with modern TTL/E-TTL/etc. metering systems, so they go for peanuts - but one of those would be a great way to teach yourself basic flash photography, make sure to get one that allows full manual control.


You might try bouncing the built in flash (this is about the only way I use built-in flashes if I'm photographing...well just about anything actually where I need a flash and all I have is the flash that's built into the camera). You'll probably get an image this way that you like better than what you're getting now. You can use lots of different things as bounce cards...in restaurants I've actually used menus before to bounce the flash because I hate the way built-in flashes look when directly fired on a human subject. Try a white piece of paper folded in half, hold it under the flash and hold it at different angles which will direct the light to the ceiling and then down on your subject.

There are better solutions of course but this one is cheap (practically free) and you can begin experimenting. You probably want something akin to a small softbox, I just don't know if they make those for built in flashes or not (i'm sure someone, somewhere does).
 
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