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Flash

Lesson 5 from: Using Your Apple iPhone 7/7 Plus for Great Photos

Julia Kelleher

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Lesson Info

5. Flash

Next Lesson: Color

Lesson Info

Flash

So if you've ever been in a dark environment and you want to shoot some friends at a party or out to dinner or whatever, and you know you need to use flash. Well, the cool thing about the Apple iPhone 7 and 7 Plus is the flash has been dramatically improved. The flash is this little, round, white dot right there. And it used to be that there were only two bulbs inside the flash. Well now, Apple has upgraded it to four bulbs. And it's a true-tone flash. Now, that's a fancy name, basically, for a color temperature of the light that makes skin tone more accurate. So all too often, we're using flash to take portraits and snapshots of people. So the flash needs to be able to portray skin tones accurately. So, the nice thing about this new, four-bulb LED flash is that it'll make skin tone look that much better. Now, keep in mind, it's still an on-camera flash. And for us professional photographers, I really only use this for snapshots. If I'm going to be taking an image where I really want i...

t to be an artistic image with lots of beautiful light, and texture, and tone, I'm not going to use on-camera flash. I'm going to use natural light that's in the environment, or I'm going to try to have someone else bring in another iPhone over here with the flashlight on to create off-camera lighting. Because what happens is, when you use flash on-camera, while it's great for snapshots, it is just this blast of white light going flat on someone's face, which honestly, can be rarely flattering because if you've ever noticed, ladies out there, flat light makes all the wrinkles disappear, which is awesome. But just keep in mind, it is going to make your lighting pretty flat on images. But that's not what we're here about. We're here to focus on how the flash is really that much brighter, 50% brighter, and can help you in low-light situations. So, we're here in the CreativeLive studio with Aubrey. Thank you, Aubrey for being our model. We're going to take a couple of flash images just to demonstrate what it does for you. So, the first thing you want to do is when you're inside your camera app on the Apple iPhone 7, you'll notice that there is a flash feature. So, I'm going to go ahead and just kind of get out of my flash. So here I am on what I would call the "homescreen" of the camera. So, at the top there, we've got our little lightning bolt that's x-ed out. That tells me that my flash is off. We have our HDR feature, which is off. We have our live view, our self timer, and then our color balance and editor. So, I'm going to go ahead and click just right here on the lightning bolt, okay? That opens up the flash area. So you can either have your flash on "Auto On," or "Off." Now, for the most part, I put it off or on, because if you choose "Auto," then the phone is going to decide whether or not you need flash and I want to decide if I need flash. So I rarely, rarely ever put it on auto, but just keep in mind, if for some reason, you're taking a picture and it's not working, or it's too low-light a situation and you need flash, you'll have to manually go into the flash feature on the camera app and actually turn the flash on. So I'm going to go ahead and turn the flash on here. You can see that the yellow lightning bolt lights up and then it gives me a little indicator in the viewfinder that the flash is on, which is nice. It tells me that it's on. And Ms. Aubrey, she's like, "What would I do? I'm just standing here." I know, you're awesome. So maybe have some fun. We'll make some fun images and we're doing it in front of a white wall here. And I'll show you kind of what the flash does having Aubrey pulled away from the wall by 10 feet versus right against the wall. So , I'm just going to go ahead and take a fun, cute picture of her to show you what the flash does. Give me a little peace sign. Let's go out. Yeah. Woohoo. Awesome. And what you'll notice is the flash takes a minute to fire, so keep that in mind. The camera needs to focus, the flash needs to turn on, and it actually needs to give me, the flash actually needs to fire. So, hold the camera up for a second, note that it is going to take a minute to do that. So, you can see Aubrey's giving us a fun, little look, but you can also see there's a pretty strong shadow behind her. That's the flash doing that. And that's the on-camera flash doing that, so just keep that in mind, that on-camera flash will give you some pretty incredible shadows behind the subject. So, now Aubrey, I'm going to move you back all the way against the wall and we're going to take one right up against the wall, which I actually think is a cooler look. So yeah, just give me one legs, yeah, and hands on the hips. Yeah, let's have some fun. Awesome, girlfriend. Okay. So, this is like the classic what we would do. Always hold, when you're taking a portrait, hold your camera up a little bit higher because that makes everybody look skinnier. And we all want to look skinnier, right? So, I'm going to focus, press my flash, hold it there. And what you'll notice is, the wall lights up a little bit. It makes things more vibrant. But you can also see that we've got some hotspots on her skin, and that's actually the flash doing that. So again, another reason why I use flash as a last resort in a really dark situation, one of the ways to get a better image here would be to take another iPhone over here and turn, you know, how you can turn the flashlight on. So, down here at the bottom, I can turn my flashlight on, put some pretty light on here like that, and then just take an image with my Apple iPhone 7 over here with no flash on, turning the flash off. And that will actually give us a more pleasing image with a little bit better light. But the flash itself on a new Apple iPhone 7 and 7 Plus is that much better. It's that much brighter. And when you're in low-light conditions, the flash can save you, especially when it's an important situation it's a memory you want to keep, and you need some kind of light. So in that situation, use it and abuse it because it'll give you some pretty good images for what it is.

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Ratings and Reviews

user-456dfb
 

Julia Kelleher does a super great job in this class of relating to her audience. Her information doesn't presume prior knowledge. She breaks down technical information in a way that makes the viewers feel smart. She assumes an intelligent, artistically-minded viewer, which is a great, positive quality. Kelleher's review of the iPhone 7 and 7+ is in depth.. Every point is demonstrated on camera. I had my camera out in order to follow along and feel that I learned a lot, even though I thought I had all this down. This course offers a lot of value, and I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to take better photographs with their Apple iPhone 7 or 7+.

Angenise Rawls
 

This is awesome! Not only does Julia teach how to use the iPhone 7/7+ to take great pics, but also video (and even a live Facebook Live demo) which is applicable for personal and business! Talk about how to promote yourself! This class makes me feel more equipped to succeed in business! And get my pics off my phone and into my life! Thanks Julia! You've done it again!

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