Flambient vs HDR

mixing flash and ambient. A very old practice with a new stupid name

Hello friends. After being in the photography business for so long now, I am rarely surprised by a new stunning technique. However, it is a guarantee that a long existing technique will show up with a brand new name as if it is the second coming of something or other.

What a pantload.

The latest one to show up again with a new label and a lot of noise and fury is flambient and it is mostly targeted at those who do real estate photography.

Flambient is just a stupid name to refer to using both flash and ambient light insted of HDR processing. Many of the articles make it sound like a brand new idea, (NOT) and incredibly complex (ONLY IF THE PHOTOGRAPHER IS AN IDIOT)

For those of us who are or have been working professional photographers, combining ambient and flash is hardly new. We did it all the time, and it worked long before HDR processing. Now that HDR is on the wane, because of the massive dynamic range in sensors, I guess it’s time for a group of yahoos and no-clues to bring up a perfectly functional process that has existed for over a century as if it were new and they had the secret recipe. A pox on all their houses.

Mixing flash and ambient light is not fundamentally difficult. So long as your shutter speed is not faster than your flash sync speed, you can readily mix flash and ambient. In fact, for real estate it can be better than HDR ever was if you want to put light into places that are commonly shadowed, or you want to expose so windows aren’t blown out and still light up a room.

If your camera supports TTL flash (it does), and you have a radio trigger, a few flashes with radio receivers and some light shapers (softboxes or umbrellas) you can easily mix the ambient and the flash. TTL offers Flash Exposure Compensation so you can choose to over expose the flash in relation to the ambient, or under expose the flash in relation to the ambient or let the two be the same exposure level.

Is it more work than HDR. Yes. HDR is just exposure bracketing followed by throwing the images into a processing blender. Most all cameras have an auto bracketing function and tons of RE photographers, amongst everybody else has been at it for going on twenty years. Your smartphone does it without even asking you, as part of its programming called computational photography. There is no skill or talent required. Any idiot can do it.

Mixing flash and ambient requires that the photographer THINK about how best to light the subject and what the goal for the image is. It is craft, not brain dead automation. However, the photographer who invests in himself or herself to learn to do mixed flash and ambient has a more useful tool in the old utility belt, that can readily deliver specific required outcomes.

Lazy is never a replacement for skill. Sticking a new label on an old professional practice does not make it new or unique, it just makes the enthusiast shill an ass. Damn this bullshit gives me migraines.

Please become a member on Patreon to help support this channel. A big thanks to all the existing Patreon members! Send in comments or questions, I read and respond to all. If you shop with B&H Photo Video, please use the link on the main page as it pays me a small commission and does not cost you anything to do so. Thanks again and we will see each other again soon.

NO AI CRAPOLA IMAGES WERE USED IN THIS ARTICLE