Fisherman

[NJLadyInCA]

What should I have done to avoid the flash effect on the thatched roof? I did not have a tripod available so the shot had to be taken with the camera hand-held.

Thank you!

Camera Canon EOS 7D
Exposure 0.017 sec (1/60)
Aperture f/4.0
Focal Length 18 mm
ISO Speed 400
Exposure Bias 0 EV
Flash On, Fired

[FlyingKiwiGirl]

I'm definitely no expert and very new around here but for what's it's worth I like the thatch showing up. But I'd crop off the left hand side thatch, just have one side showing. Nice shot.

[benchdog]

I think this scene offered a lot of potential beautiful sunset, silhouette fisherman, nice.

The only way to avoid the flash effect here would have been not to use it. You could have pushed your ISO up and used the same shutter speed and not used your flash.

[Preeb]

I'd have gone with no flash. I don't that it adds anything to the subjects, which appear to be the fisherman and the sunset. I like the composition though.

[NJLadyInCA]

Thank you all for the comments. I was getting camera shake without the flash. I'll try working with the ISO to avoid the flash in the future. I do like the shot and I am going to try to tone down the bright thatch in PS. I like the shot too!

[dlambert]

I'm guessing you were getting camera shake because the camera metered the sky and set your shutter speed fairly slow. By turning the flash on, the camera figured it had enough light to speed up the shutter, which stopped the action in the shot.

However, since the flash on your camera has a fairly short effective range, you only lit the stuff near you (the thatch roofs), leaving the stuff in the distance dark. Honestly, if it were me, I'd claim that this is exactly what you intended to do and take credit for a nice shot (I sort of like it as-is).

Alternatives, though, if you were doing this all over again?
* Use a more powerful flash with a zoom feature. This would probably have allowed you to illuminate the fisherman, though you'd have the same sort of effect for the trees and sky.
* Use shutter priority to stop the action, and brighten to suit in post-processing.
* Increase your ISO speed, which would let you shoot a faster shutter speed. As you increase ISO, you'll get more noise in your photo, but the 7D is really good up to 1600 or more, I believe.

This shot is a good example of how strobes can completely change a scene, even though the effect here isn't what you intended.