Meta description: Get your camera’s built-in flash under control. Learn how to soften harsh light, bounce it off walls, and get natural-looking photos—easily and affordably, even without an external flash.

Lights are essential pieces of photography equipment, especially studio photography. Light modifiers can adjust the shape and direction of the lights you use. They are attached to flashes or lights and are used to control the direction and intensity of light.

Lights and light bulbs are mainly chosen based on their light intensity or color temperature. There are many types of lights on the market. For creative professions, color fidelity is very important. If you haven’t paid much attention to color fidelity until now, you may be surprised to learn that there is a visible difference between different lights and how people and objects look under them.

A powerful light source is an invaluable tool for photographers. Flash photography is commonly used in the studio, but also does its job outdoors and can drastically change the scene. The only problem is that the range of offerings is enormous and can make your head spin. We’ll walk you through the different parameters and specifications so you know what to watch out for and what you don’t need to worry about when it comes to choosing your flash.

There are many of you out there that might be considering a start in studio photography. Aside from renting a studio, there’s also the option of creating a space of your own design. In this case, one of the most important decisions you’ll be making will be choosing the lighting. This includes not only choosing specific brands of lighting, but also the types of lighting. There are more options out there than you may think. 

Permanent lights for photography come in a variety of colors and shapes. Among the more exotic of these lights are LED ring lights. And we were interested in seeing what all you can conjure up with ring lights, so we gave one of them a thorough test run. Naturally we didn’t keep the results just for ourselves. We were surprised to see how much this light could do—the effects it produces are attractive, and it’s easy to work with. But we won’t stick to just theory; we’ll also show you how to work with ring lights in practice.

There are some situations where daylight just isn’t enough. Your light is weak, giving you no choice but to find or create some of your own. One good candidate for that light source is a flash fired outside your camera body.

This is the story of one night photograph. We’ll be using it to show step-by-step how to get the most out of flash photography, and what special steps the pros take.

Almost every camera has a built-in flash, and you can buy external flashes too. Where does a flash help? Where does it hurt? Read on to find out.

Most cameras have a built-in flash. But much more can be done with an external flash, especially when you position it away from the camera. There are a few issues you have to solve with an off-camera flash though, such as how to actually tell the flash to fire.