It’s only two months into my photography hobby, and already I’m becoming a flash snob.  So much so, that it’s ruining my chances at getting otherwise candid family photographs.  I’m enjoying – and often failing – the task of taking pictures given the ambient light in a room and not introducing the harsh light introduced by the camera’s built-in flash.

I’ve got enough of a grasp on exposure that I understand and appreciate that pictures may be taken in low ambient light situations – it just means that I need to use a much slower shutter speed (or an incredibly high ISO, which I’m prone not to do.)  The problem that I’ve created for myself is I also like the zoomed out view offered by my various telephoto lenses.  Unfortunately, the telephoto end of a lens and a slow shutter speed do not make for good friends.

In all the reading I’ve been doing, it seems that all of the great shots are taken with a tripod.  Bryan Peterson, author of Understanding Exposure and Learning to See Creatively, has example photos on every page of his books, along with captions about the photo itself.  Almost without fail, he mentions “… so I grabbed my tripod …”  My wife already gives me a goofy look when I break out the tripod, and I’m not going to go grab it and set it up for those candid family photos.

So, until my course with Bryan starts later this week and I can gain some additional perspective on using flash when striving for a correct exposure using ambient light, I’m going to hide my problem by admitting that I don’t have one and not taking the pictures that I could otherwise take with a flash.