gvarner Loc: Central Oregon Coast

I know, I know, the common comment is to never use it so let’s get beyond that. I see it as a useful tool for beginners to get into using flash. Most of what I’ve learned is about using it as a fill flash outdoors in bright contrasty light. Full disclosure, I haven’t tried any of these techniques myself but am determined to do so. Your thoughts on camera shooting modes, TTL vs manual flash, and other settings would be appreciated. I’d like to stay away from using reflectors and diffusers for now, just a direct flash discussion.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Flash Exposure Compensation is your most effective tool and friend of the pop-up flash. Learn it. Use it. Succeed.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

I sometimes use it for fill outdoors.

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

"Fill flash" (especially outdoors) is one of the important lessons I learned when taking a class on "how to use your SLR" in 1984. My recommendation is to shoot a before/after to really understand the difference it can make. My instructor was impressed that I was the only one in our class who thought to do that

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Maybe there are instructors that just don't like on-camera flash, so they don't teach about it?

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

I stopped using my pop-up flashes a long time ago. Not because they didn't work or do a good job...they did. The problem was that almost any useful lens would create a vignette at the bottom of my image at wider focal lengths. I just got tired of trying to keep up with how wide I could go with which lens without creating a problem.

Only one of my current cameras (a D810) has a pop-up flash. I found and bought a couple of SB-400 flashes and use them when fill is needed. I also have a couple of little adaptors that I ordered from B&H that let me raise them up about three quarters of an inch.

BebuLamar

I found built in flash is more difficult to use than a separate flash.

Rick from NY Loc: Sarasota FL

Pop up flashes get a bad rap, deservedly so, because indoors they produce harsh, unnatural and unpleasant images. Red eye too is often a problem. However in outdoor, harsh lighting, the pop up flash can be very useful for people photography. The vignetting issue with longer barreled lens is seldom a problem outdoors with just a pop of flash to open up the shadows

The suggestion to use flash compensation is right on. I find that using manual exposure to meter a scene with no flash, reducing that exposure by 1/2 stop and dialing in some minus comp on the flash works best. Take some test shots with various amounts of flash comp and decide.

If you are complete rookie, setting your camera to “program” mode and popping the flash as is will often yield somewhat satisfactory . But don’t get lazy. Learn how to use that flash with exposure comp and manual metering is best. I use my strobes outdoors far more frequently than indoors.

E.L.. Shapiro Loc: Ottawa, Ontario Canada

The folks who preach "never" and knock flash usually don't like it because they never learned how to use it properly.

certainly, the pop-up flash is not the ideal light source but it will prove adequate exposure where there is simply not enough light to capture the moment you are after. It can't be bounced or somehow redirected so you are stuck with all the disadvantages of direct flash. The old reliable inverse square law kicks in with a vengeance and provides overexposed foregrounds, underexposed "black hole" backgrounds and aside from that, aesthetically unpleasing flat lighting. A perfect formula for unnatural images. What's worse, the ligt source is so close to the lens that the ligh may illuminate the blood vessels in the retina in portraits and shots of people and produce the dreaded "red eye" effect- great for a portait of Count Dracula!

The pop-up flash does have a few redeeming advantages, once you know how to apply it, it can provide a handyflash-fill in harsh sunlight and other natural lighting that is normally too contrasty and needs additional light to rescue shadow detail. Once you know how to use the fals exposure compensation feature in the camera, you can create a range of lighting ratios with just the right amount of fill. Flash fill light shoud not overpower the natural light and produce realistic lighting results.

It can be used as a wink-light. Wink lights are nothing new. Polaroid, years ago, was invented for its cameras and their high-speed film. It is a very low-powered flash to provide subtle fill-in for overly contrasty conditions. Braun had their Hood-Winter. It was mounted on a shoe atop a Hasselblad lens shade, specially designed for low-ligh portraiture or where a wide aperture was preferred. It packed a whopping 6 and 12 watt-seconds and worked beautifully with window-lighted portraits. I could shoot an f/4 and the light came in an f/ 1.9 or 2.on the meter.

In a hitch, you can modify the pop-up flash with some diffusion material, the old trick of a white handkerchief., etc.

If you want to get into off-camera multiple flashes and not break the bank, an off-came flash equipped with an inexpensive photoelectric cell can be triggered by your pop-up flash.

Again, the pop-up flash is not necessarily the best primary ligt source but it will come in handy in a hitch or when there is just not enough light to grab an important shot.

gvarner Loc: Central Oregon Coast

Thank you all for the thoughtful comments. My advice for some of the newbies that I know who might want to use their pop up flash would be to use it for outdoor informal portraits in harsh sunlight, be patient and do a little trial and error exposure compensation.

Will flash EC work with the camera set in full AUTO mode? I guess I could try it and see what happens.

Rick from NY Loc: Sarasota FL

When I had bodies with built in pop up flashes, this ingenious tool worked wonders. Truly a game changer, quite inexpensive and easily carried and used.

https://photo-tips-online.com/review/demb-pop-up-flip-it-modifier/

Regrettably, it has been discontinued, but the photographer who invented it is very nice guy and easily accessible. I emailed him about a different one of his discontinued products and he found one in his office and sent it to me. Google Joe Demb and ask him if he has any laying around if interested.

PHRubin Loc: Nashville TN USA

My biggest disappointment in pop-up flashes is that they aren't as strong as I would like. So I have a bigger flash on a bracket on my 80D. The R7 I ordered doesn't have a pop-up, so there is no decision there.

However, my other cameras all have pop-ups too. The pocketable cameras are usually very weak, the bridge camera is stronger. As is my custom, I use flash most when ambient light is low rather than as fill since that is the situation in which I most often find myself.

Clapperboard

An overlooked use of the pop up flash is to assist focussing in poor light. The 'pre-flash' that is normally used in TTL for setting the flash level can be set to ON and the flash set to OFF. Thus the pre-flash will fire and allow the use of auto focus in poor light when it can be difficult to get focus either auto or manually, without adding any flash illumination to the exposure.

daldds Loc: NYC

I have just one camera with a pop-up flash, a Sony RX VIii. Now that noise is a minimal problem, when I use flash it is primarily for fill-in.
Operators must realize that the pop-up flash is useful only at "conversation" distance, but naturally too close still burns out the subject. If there is time, I control the output from the menu. Otherwise, I just tilt the flash up at about a 45° angle with my finger under it, with "about" being a judgment call.
I used fill for both of these images with the pop-up tilted.

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jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I like the pop-up flash. If I need a little more light, or fill light, there it is.