Have you ever thought about why digital compacts with built-in flashes have such an obvious shadow on them? Well, obviously it’s because the camera is too damn small to get some distance between the lens and the flash. Quite apart from the problem with red eyes (which, luckily, is easy to avoid), it means that the shadow thrown on your subjects is annoying.

You can reduce the badness of built-in flashes in many ways: You can create a flash diffuser (another one), but these generally only work on off-camera flashguns, or larger built-in units. For compacts, you can try building an on-camera reflector, which helps lots.

If you have nothing at hand, though, you might just like this nutty idea: Turn your camera upside-down! I have no faith in the method whatsoever, but if nothing else, it will make people laugh, so this tip falls in the same category as the Pez-dispenser in your hotshoe or the umbrella-hat flash diffusor!

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