When I was in college, my photojournalism professor always taught me to shoot without using a flash. Honestly, I never questioned him on it, and instead, I just did it. It wasn’t until years later where I was testing cameras and thought to use the flash instead because I liked the look. Specifically when I was reviewing the Olympus XZ1 back in 2011, I realized how wonderful images in the daylight can look when you use a flash. Digicams like that are available at fairly affordable prices now. And better yet, they can still make more aesthetically pleasing images than your phone can.
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So why use a flash during the daylight? Well, it’s all about balance and details in the photo. With older digicams, the sensor and processor aren’t quite capable of delivering a deep dynamic range where you get the shadows and the highlights easily. Maybe you want that — and if that’s the case then I encourage you to embrace it.
But in the moments where you want all the details you can possibly get from an image, speed up the shutter speed and let the flash fire. Also shoot with a lower ISO setting. What the flash will do is bring out the details in the darker parts of the scene while the shutter speed is bringing out the details in the brighter parts of the scene. The two work together very well.
Most importantly, this can only really be done with actual, real flashes — not LED flashes. Luckily, all cameras back then had only real flashes. Typically, flashes have quartz or something else like that in them. And due to how the laws of physics work, you’ll get details called specular highlights that you can’t get with an LED at all.
Oh, and before I forget: a flash is useless beyond a certain distance. If you’re shooting with a zoom lens and you’re zoomed in all the way, to photograph something further out, the flash won’t be useful at all. Typically, flashes on old digicams are useful only to no further than 7 feet away. So in that case, turn it off.