The biggest problem in indoor photography is lighting. The built-in flash of the digital cameras simply isn't powerful enough to provide adequate light to brighten an entire room. Most 35mm cameras overcome this limitation by having a hot shoe where you can attach a much more powerful external flash. The camera "tells" the external flash to fire when it's needed. Unfortunately, most digital cameras only have their built-in flash and don't have any provisions for an external unit.

However, there is a solution. It's called a "slave flash". A slave flash doesn't rely on a hard wired connection to the camera to "know" when to flash. Instead, it has an electric eye that senses when your built-in flash fires, and then the slave flash fires as well. These flash units are typically battery powered, and run from about $50 up depending on the power and features. You can find them at your local camera store, or do a search on one of the Web search engines like Google.com for "slave flash" and "digital camera."

If your digital camera's flash has a red-eye reduction feature, you'll either need to turn this feature off or purchase a flash unit that can work with it. The red-eye feature works by pre-flashing quickly a couple of times to cause the subject's pupils to constrict before the actual flash is fired. This pre-flashing will trick the slave flash into firing earlier than it should. Some of the slave flash units are designed specifically to work with cameras having this feature and will fire at the right time, although it's normally easier to just turn the feature off on the camera if possible.

There are several other things that you can do to improve the lighting of your indoor pictures. Make sure all of the lights in the room are on. You may even want to consider picking up one or two clamp-on flood light units from your local home improvement store and bouncing their light off of the ceiling in darker rooms. Be sure to open all windows to allow as much outside light as possible to enter the room.

If you must take pictures shooting directly at the window or glass door, and it's very bright outside, you may be forced to close the curtains and rely on your internal lights and your slave flash. Try it both ways and see what turns out the best. Remember to take a lot of pictures so you'll have a lot to choose from when you get back to the office. You can also digitally enhance your photos using imaging software to lighten, darken, sharpen or adjust contrast.

Sometimes just a small adjustment on interior photos makes a big difference.

Published: October 14, 2002

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