I try and stay away from this last desperate option though. But that isn’t always practical. When there is nowhere practical to bounce flash off, and off-camera lighting isn’t feasible … then you have to pick your favourite light diffuser for your flash, or even resort to hard direct flash. When the ambient light levels are so low that you can not get away with a reasonable shutter speed, then you have to use flash.

We might very well have to resort to plastic diffuser cups on our speedlights, or even direct flash.

We may have to use umbrellas and softboxes … although these aren’t always practical at events,.

I’d still like to offer some suggestions and help. So while I did once reply to this question about bouncing flash in these impossible places, “you’re screwed”. Then we have to improvise or perhaps accept that we simply are in a situation where there are no easy options.

(Check the Related Articles at the bottom.) But despite pushing the limits of our cameras and lenses and on-camera flashguns … there are those times when we’re just out of reach of what is physically possible with our equipment. Much of this website deals with ways of bouncing flash. Sometimes we can find innovative ways to bounce flash. We have to improvise then.įor example, with this church at West Point Military Academy, no flash is allowed, and you have to rely on the ambient light. Then a high-ISO capable camera and wide apertures are necessary to grab any of the available light. Even thought we can get surprisingly good results with bounce flash in some touch scenarios (some of which are mentioned in the Related Articles links), there is only so much we can do with bounce flash. When asked what we can do when there is nothing to bounce our flash off, my usual reply is that that little speedlight only has so many electrons that can be turned into photons. This would be a tough color cast to fix in post-processing!

Or, as in this photo above, when you encounter a venue with red ceilings and walls. Maybe, just maybe there might be a technique that could help when faced with super-high ceilings and wooden walls. What do you do when you can’t bounce your flash?Ī question that I’m often asked in emails or on this site or in person is, “What if there is nothing to bounce your flash off?” Sometimes the question seems to be directed as a challenge, but mostly I think photographers are hoping for a great solution that may have evaded them.

Watch me bounce and touch the ceiling