Ok, it’s warm(ish) and wet this weekend (good training opportunity…) but there’s been some good bright sunny days here in the Peak and TBH the crags aren’t in bad shape given its still only (very) early March. I’m still in bouldering mode yet (just) which I’m totally enjoying and it’ll be good for my climbing later in the season. It's also thrown up the possibility of grabbing the odd shot or two. And many of those that I’ve taken this year I've had to throw some flash into the mix...

Direct winter sunlight is invariable harsh light and shadows have a nasty habit of going to solid black. This is especially so on limestone when exposures have to be carefully set to preserve detail in the lightlights. That said, patches of chalk-covered holds on the grit have a habit of blowing out as well. So what’s the solution then? In two word, fill-flash. Yeph, dig the flash out of the camera bag and start pumping some portable sunlight into the shot to throw some light onto the shadow areas.

Using fill-flash isn’t all plain sailing though as there’s some pitfalls waiting along the way. Below are some bouldering shots on both gritstone and limestone in which there’s a combination of no flash and fill-flash. For the grit shots of Dan, the fill-flash is from two strobes, one on camera and one remote down and left of the camera and the climber. The limestone shot of Chris was using an single on camera stobe. Usually I set the fill flash manually and vary the level of compensation depending on the situation. Check-out the shadow detail for the flash contribution. I’ll knock up a PoTM piece ASAP to cover fill flash in more detail so watch this space...

No flash – and not much sun-light either – all a bit flat…