How to Balance Ambient Light and Flash for Better Photos

When you are working with artificial light, you often have to think about not only controlling the flash, but the ambient light as well. That can be a bit of a mystery for a lot of us when we first start working with artificial light, but this excellent video tutorial will demystify the relationship between ambient and artificial light and show you how to take control of both for better images. 

Coming to you from David Bergman with Adorama TV, this great video tutorial will show you how to balance flash and ambient light. A lot of photographers have a bit of trouble with this, particularly since ambient light is constantly visible and flash is essentially invisible, making it tricky to visualize how they will combine together. Nonetheless, it is important to master this, as having these skills will give you complete control of the lighting in your images, allowing you to do things like create dramatic sunset portraits or completely remove the ambient light from an image when you want to light it with your strobes only. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Bergman. 

If you would like to continue learning about lighting, check out "Illuminating The Face: Lighting for Headshots and Portraits With Peter Hurley!"

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Alex Cooke is a Cleveland-based portrait, events, and landscape photographer. He holds an M.S. in Applied Mathematics and a doctorate in Music Composition. He is also an avid equestrian.

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