Those of you who follow me and my photography know that just over a year ago I started using lighting properly for the first time. It totally changed by photography, especially for family photographs and my new love, portrait and event photography. However, this is all based on using off-camera flash, where the lighting it set off by the trigger on the camera. I have been arrested to use on-camera flashes!
The primary difference between on-camera and off-camera flash lies in their positioning relative to the camera and, consequently, the quality and control of the light they produce.
An on-camera flash is a flash unit that is mounted directly onto the camera’s hot shoe (the small slot on top of the camera designed for accessories) or is built directly into the camera body (like the pop-up flash on many consumer DSLRs).
An off-camera flash is a flash unit that is positioned separately from the camera, typically on a light stand, held by an assistant, or clamped to a surface. It’s triggered wirelessly (via radio triggers or optical slave modes) or with a sync cable.
My memories and fear of on-camera flash harken back to the days of point and shoot cameras (film and digital), which would blast and insane amount of light into your face, with light to no control of its power or direction. When looking back at images from old film photographs, or early CCD digital cameras, you’ll remember the subject was blown out, and the background darkened to a point where things just didn’t look right.
Over the last year, I’ve began to understand light and lighting much more. My year long self-portrait sessions were a testament to my commitment to learn and understand off-camera lighting using between one and three off-camera flashes simultaneously. But during this time, because of that irrational fear, I never once just put the flash on top of the camera.
Skip forward to today and I’ve been studying articles and videos online of on-camera flash use, and just this week I’ve done a complete portrait shoot using only on-camera flash. To really push myself, I used not just a quality Godox TT685 (fully articulated with many functions including High Speed Sync), but also a very basic manual control Godox IM22 mini-flash.
To say I’m impressed is an understatement! The ability to control the power, and direction of the light while mounted on the camera is not as alien now as it was before I started using flashes regularly. I’ve learned that full power is not always necessary, and bouncing the light off walls and ceilings or shooting above the ahead can really soften the light.
My recent tests and actual shoots using on-camera flash have been an unmitigated success, and although I will still be using off camera flash for most sessions, I know I can confidently pull out the on-camera flash and have very similar results to off-camera flash in the situations it’s needed.
One Camera One Lens Photography 
Well Mark, I didn’t know those little ones were adjustable too — good tip, I think many will appreciate that. Personally, I won’t use flashes much myself, maybe for macro now and then, but otherwise I rarely need them.
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Thank you, its surprising what we pick up reading each others blogs! Have a good week.
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Very true, you too Mark 👍
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