Keith_bru said:
i want to do a mod shoot under low key light. but i'm having Trouble with flash.
I'm not sure what a "mod shoot" is. If you mean "mood", the mood derives from the ambient lighting. Using another light source like a flashlight will alter and most likely kill it. A flashlight does not "amplify" the existing light. It is an additional light source, frequently completely overpowering whatever other light is there.
i tryed a number of things but photo's come back to harhs of even washed out.
Camera mounted flash units aiming directly at the subject give horrible light for most pictorial applications. They're useful if you have to get a shot at all costs, regardless of any aesthetics - that's why e.g. press photographers frequently use such a configuration. However, you'll rarely find a studio photographer using such a setup. They generally use flash units illuminating the scene from different directions than the camera, plus big reflectors/diffusers.
There's some limited things one can try with camera mounted flashes - namely, use reflectors/diffusers, too.
The effect of a diffusor is determined first and foremost by it's size: it's main purpose is to enlarge the size of the light source, which results in softer shadows (and also less light fall-off for close-ups, reducing the chance of burnt out patches). It's a simple matter of geometry, which also means that the popular small clip-on diffuser units are pretty much a waste of money.
The purpose of a reflector is that it lets you effectively move the position of the light source away from the camera, resulting in less "flat" images. Again, anything attached directly to the camera-mounted flash unit isn't going to make a big difference since it cannot change the position of the light source by much.
One common indoor trick is to use walls/ceilings as diffuse reflectors. However, this requires that the flash unit can be aimed at them. Many cheap units don't allow this, but there are accessories that enable flash units to be tilted. Another partial solution is to remove the flash unit from the camera using a remote sync cable (or nowadays also wireless remote trigger units). However, most cheap flash units are not very powerful, and you might easily end up with pleasing, but insufficient lighting - in which case you could use the ambient light in the first place.
To summarize: a photograph depends first and foremost of the quality of the lighting. With a camera-mounted, direct-firing flash unit, there's nothing you can adjust at all about it, which makes it virtually impossible to create pleasant lighting. Add-ons like diffusors all obey he same laws of physics: many units have little effect, irrespective of brand name and how popular they may be.
My personal recommendation: don't use camera mounted flashes (at least as the main light source) if there's any way you can avoid it, but rely on the available light instead.
