Falling Off On The Edges

There are a number of photographers over the years that have posed these two questions to us. “Why is the light falling off on the edges?” or “How come the Qflash is not covering all of the frame?”.

They notice this when they are photographing large families or groups at events and do not realize why it is happening. After finding out when it is occurring I can give them an answer to correct it.  What is happening is that they have the large group of people arranged in a straight line and the ends of the groups are farther away from the flash than they are at the center of the group. This causes the ends to be darker or have ” light falloff”.

The answer is simple — curve the group at the ends, so it forms a shallow semi-circle. This brings all the people approaching the ends to be closer to the flash and therefore will get the same quantity of light as those in the center of the group.