Digital Camera Flash Units

Posted on July 30, 2008
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by Dan Feildman

Flash units can come in many sizes and shapes for digital photography. Those cameras on the lower end of the scale come with low energy built in flash units. However, some gear such as the high end digital SLR cameras can accommodate external flash units advanced in their abilities to provide excellent lighting in complicated situations. Know the basic facts about the difference between built in and external flash units.

Many advances have been made with flash units since the early days of photography. In photography’s infancy, flash units were using powder that was lit by electrical current and then “blown up” to generate the light energy. This method was most certainly a risk. It also proved a challenge as the flash units were not automatically in time with the camera’s shutter so the photographer had to coordinate the flash to go off at the exact time the photo was shot.

The flash units of today are highly developed technology devices. The flash and camera are automatically synchronized using an electronic flash tube taking all of the pressure off of the photographer. Digital cameras today can determine themselves if a flash is necessary, can set their own intensity and other parameters and can trigger the flash at the precise tine the shutter is opened. All of this is done in the background with no manual effort. For those scenarios calling for a more hands on approach, digital cameras also include a manual mode where the user can set all of the same features to their specifications.

Flash units are divided into two categories: Internal built-in flash units or external flash units. Internal flash units are built into the camera. Almost all digital cameras include such a unit and allow the user some control over it through the camera’s menus and buttons. External flash units are attached to the camera’s body through a dedicated slide-in slot or by using an electrical cable. Not all digital cameras support external flash units. Usually the lower end pocket cameras do not allow external flash units while all high end digital SLR cameras do allow such external flash units. External flash units can vary a lot. They can have different light energy levels that they can emit and different mechanical characteristics. Some external flash units also include smart sensors to measure ambient light, distance and other optical parameters in order to optimize the flash effect.

Digital cameras can use their flash units in automatic or in manual mode. In automatic mode the camera measures ambient light and fires the flash when not enough ambient light is available. Sometimes the camera will make the wrong decision as to using the flash and will either fire or not fire the flash when the opposite was needed. Setting the flash intensity is important too. If the flash unit fires too much light energy on objects that are too close to the camera the digital photo will be washed out. On the other hand if the flash unit fires a small amount of light energy on an object that is farther away from the digital camera the digital photo will be a too dark.

Flash units do have boundaries. They do not light any view and any object at any distance from the camera. You should know the limitations of your flash unit. As an example, experiment to see what the highest amount of light energy it can produce and at what distance an object can effectively be lit from. Use a tripod with a longer exposure and turn off the flash itself if the object is out of the effective flash range. There can be cases where it is still useful to use the flash even if there is enough ambient light available. In this situation, you can manually fire the camera’s flash. This technique is known as fill-in flash and is typically used to fill-in shadowed or darkened areas on objects in the digital photograph.

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