Washed-out flash close-ups
As part of documenting her work, my wife takes photos of patients' skin. In a dimly-lit room, she photographs the part of interest along with a paper ruler and a slip of paper containing the particulars. For this task she has been using a $90 Canon A-series P&S, using flash, in full auto mode. The A-series was of particular convenience value because of the ability to instantly replace dead AA batteries with fresh ones while doing rounds. Recently she asked if I had an old camera to spare, as she now has an assistant and thus a need for a second camera. Jumping at the excuse to upgrade something, I volunteered my trusty dusty Canon A710. I told her it should do as well or better, and also used disposable batteries. Set it for full automatic and matched the settings of the older P&S as best I could. A week or so later, she said "I still need a camera for work". When asked what was wrong with the A710, she told me the paper ruler and tag were so washed out that the text could not be read. So in her office I tried both of them side by side, using my arm and a paper memo as test subjects. Sure enough, using flash and full auto, the A710 could not properly expose the skin AND the paper, where the el-cheapo did just fine. I experimented with various metering modes (evaluative, spot, center-weighted) but in flash mode this seems to make little difference. I tried dialing down the exposure compensation a couple of stops, but then the skin was too dark. Worse, she told me that she doesn't have time to fiddle with settings, she wants to point and shoot, period, as she does with the el-cheapo. Why can the el-cheapo handle this situation but the better-equipped model fails? I suspect the flash on the A710 is more powerful and, at close range, simply produces too much light. Suggestions? I'm going to try attenuating the flash by taping something over it as my next step. |
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